;\ 


THE    LIFE    OF 
HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 


THE  LIFE  OF 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU 

INCLUDING  MANY  ESSAYS  HITHERTO 

UNPUBLISHED 

AND   SOME  ACCOUNT    OF   HIS 
FAMILY   AND   FRIENDS 

BY 

P.  B.  SANBOEN 

With  Illustrations 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 

HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

1917 


)9/7 


COPYRIGHT,    1917,   BY   LOUISA  SANBORN 
ALL   RIGHTS    RESERVED 

Published  May  iqif 


PREFACE 

A  FINAL  Life  of  Thoreau  from  my  hand  has  this 
peculiar  claim  on  the  reader's  attention,  that  it 
includes  memoirs  of  his  ancestors  not  before  given 
to  the  public;  and  also,  in  their  complete  form, 
many  essays  written  in  his  early  youth,  —  all  that 
the  care  of  his  kindred  had  preserved,  —  besides 
what  escaped  from  their  research,  verses,  letters, 
and  memoranda.  Other  letters  and  fragments 
may  come  to  light;  but  so  careful  has  been  the 
search  (and  the  price  paid  for  his  manuscripts  so 
high,  though  he  was  much  neglected  in  his  life 
time),  that  few  can  be  now  in  existence,  outside  of 
well-known  collections.  Their  stores  have  mostly 
passed  through  my  hands  for  editing  or  for  ex 
amination. 

Important  single  finds,  exclusive  of  fragmentary 
or  perfect  Journals,  now  printed,  were  an  essay  of 
1840,  The  Service,  from  the  portfolio  of  Emerson, 
(here  mainly  included);  a  lecture  of  1843  on  Sir 
Walter  Raleigh,  meant  for  the  Dial;  and  the  Notes 
of  his  Western  journey  of  1861,  of  which  no  copy 
was  made  until  I  edited  it  for  the  Boston  Biblio 
phile  Society  in  1905.  The  Raleigh  had  before  been 


PREFACE 

printed  by  this  Society;  both  were  from  the  manu 
scripts  of  Mr.  Bixby,  bought  of  Mr.  Russell,  to 
whom  they  came  by  bequest  from  Mr.  Blake,  to 
whom  Miss  Thoreau  gave  them.  From  the  Walden 
manuscripts  in  Mr.  Bixby's  hands  I  made  many 
additions  to  the  original  printed  book,  published 
in  1854,  when  I  edited  the  two  volumes  of  Walden 
for  the  Bibliophile  Society  in  1909,  with  elucidat 
ing  notes  and  some  rearrangement  of  the  text. 

Such  insertions  and  notes,  with  passages  and 
prefaces  in  other  volumes,  privately  printed,  or 
now  out  of  print,  have  been  freely  used  by  me 
here;  being  mostly  the  fruit  of  my  long  research  in 
the  writings  of  Ellery  Channing  and  Thoreau,  and 
of  my  ten  years'  intimacy  with  him  and  his  family. 
My  acquaintance  with  his  sister  Sophia  lasted  for 
ten  years  more;  but  I  never  saw  her  after  1875, 
though  I  occupied  her  house  until  it  was  sold  to 
Louisa  Alcott  in  1877.  Her  aunt,  Maria  Thoreau, 
last  of  the  name  in  America,  died  at  Bangor  in 
1881.  Her  known  ancestors  were  wholly  English 
and  Scotch;  but  on  Henry's  mother's  side  was  a 
New  England  ancestry,  —  Joneses  of  Weston  and 
Dunbars  of  Bridgewater,  — whose  collegiate  and 
political  history  was  so  peculiar  and  so  little  known, 
even  to  the  Thoreaus,  that  I  here  tell  it  at  some 
length  in  my  first  chapter,  and  in  an  Appendix. 

[  vi] 


PREFACE 

The  research  of  Thoreau  himself  in  those  de 
partments  of  nature,  life,  and  literature  which  he 
chose  to  investigate  in  his  comparatively  short 
Me,  was  diligent,  strenuous,  and  productive.  His 
own  library  was  small,  and  I  here  print  its  cata 
logue  for  the  first  time,  in  the  Appendix;  and  also 
a  scheme  of  readings  either  for  himself,  or  for  some 
young  man  under  his  direction,  which  I  have  good 
reason  for  thinking  he  had  himself  taken,  as  early, 
at  least,  as  the  year  1847,  when  he  left  his  study 
in  Walden  Woods,  to  take  charge  of  the  hospitali 
ties  of  his  friend  Emerson's  household,  while  Em 
erson  was  making  his  second  visit  to  Europe  in 
1847-48.  The  readings  of  both  these  friends,  and 
of  their  late  survivor  Ellery  Channing,  were  much 
more  extended  and  discursive  than  most  of  their 
biographers  and  critics  have  known  or  usually 
suspected.  Their  published  Journals  disclose  this 
fact,  to  the  surprise  of  several  hasty  critics.  The 
importation  of  rare  volumes  made  by  Mr.  Alcott, 
Mr.  Lane,  and  Mr.  Cholmondeley  in  the  period 
from  1840  to  1855,  together  with  Theodore  Par 
ker's  and  George  Ripley's  extensive  studies,  put 
the  Concord  Authors  in  communication  with 
many  important  authors  not  generally  read  by 
their  contemporaries. 

This  being  so,  it  is  strange  that  Thoreau,  so  far 
[vii] 


PREFACE 

as  we  can  learn  by  an  inspection  of  his  manu 
scripts,  as  well  as  his  publications,  never  came  in 
contact  with  the  travels  and  researches  of  that 
earlier  Poet-Naturalist  of  the  Eighteenth  Century, 
commonly  known  as  Hector  St.  John,  but  entitled 
from  his  birth  to  the  baptismal  name  of  Michel- 
Guillaume  St.  Jean  de  Crevecceur,  which  he  used 
in  his  later  life,  when  he  appeared  on  the  stage 
of  European  and  international  affairs.  Like  the 
Thoreau  family,  these  St.  Johns  were  subjects  of 
the  ancient  Duchy  of  Normandy,  which  became 
for  some  centuries  connected  with  the  Crown  of 
England,  —  the  Thoreaus  in  the  Channel  Islands, 
the  St.  Johns  on  the  coast  of  Lower  Normandy. 
Like  the  Thoreaus,  too,  the  St.  Johns  took  to  wan 
dering,  —  at  least  in  the  branch  that  settled  in 
England,  —  and  sent  offshoots  to  Massachusetts 
and  Connecticut,  of  whom  in  England  were 
Cromwell's  Solicitor-General,  Oliver  St.  John,  and 
Pope's  brilliant  friend  Henry  St.  John,  the  poli 
tician  Bolingbroke,  and  in  New  England  the 
Bulkeleys  and  Emersons  of  Concord  and  Connecti 
cut.  Thoreau's  friend  and  early  patron,  Waldo 
Emerson,  seems  to  have  been  a  fifth  cousin  of  the 
uneasy  and  immoral  politician  of  Queen  Anne's 
time,  Henry  St.  John,  to  whom  Pope  dedicated  his 
Essay  on  Man.  The  St.  John  family  remaining 

[  viii  ] 


PREFACE 

in  Normandy,  to  which  Hector  St.  John  belonged, 
was  probably  distantly  related  to  that  branch  of 
it  which  had  crossed  over  into  England,  and  from 
England  had  migrated  to  America.  And  it  was 
singular  that  the  same  love  and  close  observation 
of  external  nature,  the  same  admiration  for  the 
American  Indians,  with  far  greater  facilities  for 
studying  and  living  their  mode  of  life,  and  a  simi 
lar  turn  of  expression  in  literature,  should  have 
existed  in  the  American  Colonies,  and  inscribed 
itself  in  half  a  dozen  French  volumes,  before  the 
American  Thoreaus,  in  1801,  had  settled  them 
selves  in  Concord,  which  they  were  to  aid  in  mak 
ing  famous. 

For  it  now  appears  that  a  considerable  part  of 
the  present  fame  of  Concord  in  literature  grows 
out  of  the  life  and  writings  of  Henry  Thoreau, 
whose  writings  had  little  circulation  before  his 
death  in  1862.  Almost  every  page  of  his  manu 
script,  of  which  he  left  enough  to  fill  at  least 
twenty-five  volumes,  has  now  been  searched  out 
and  printed,  —  some  of  it  over  and  over,  —  and 
something  of  it  has  been  translated  into  the  lan 
guages  of  Europe.  Selections  from  these  volumes 
now  make  part  of  the  courses  of  instruction  in  the 
secondary  schools  and  colleges  of  the  United 
States;  and  his  haunts  in  and  near  Concord  have 


PREFACE 

been  carefully  traced  out  and  pictured  in  sketches 
and  photographs,  to  the  number  of  several  hun 
dred.  The  same  is  true  of  his  wanderings  by  the 
Atlantic  seashore,  and  in  the  mountains  and  for 
ests,  and  along  the  rivers  of  New  England.  As 
many  pilgrims  come,  from  all  directions,  to  follow 
his  well-described  paths  and  visit  his  grave,  as 
now  frequent  the  haunts  of  any  of  the  Concord 
authors,  except  of  Louisa  Alcott,  who  still  con 
tinues  to  be  more  widely  read  than  any  one  of  her 
famous  contemporaries  in  the  town  where  they  are 
buried. 

This  constant  growth  for  more  than  half  a  cen 
tury,  since  his  death  in  May,  1862,  has  finally 
called  forth  from  my  portfolios  his  earlier  writings 
(chiefly  college  essays),  where  they  have  lain  since 
I  made  some  use  of  them  in  my  first  biography  of 
Thoreau,  published  in  1882,  just  before  the  death 
of  Emerson,  who  had  already  edited  a  volume  of 
his  friend's  Letters  and  Poems  in  1865,  and  had 
strongly  urged  the  publication  of  his  Journals  in 
full,  which  has  been  done. 

It  might  be  a  question  whether  these  Journals 
should  not  have  been  edited,  at  least  so  far  as  to 
bring  together  those  entries  which  manifestly 
concern  the  same  or  similar  subjects;  for  that  was 
his  own  manner  of  editing,  when  he  drew  from  the 


PREFACE 

same  Journals  the  material  of  his  two  volumes,  — 
the  Week  and  Walden,  —  and  his  numerous  de 
tached  magazine  articles  and  essays,  which  were 
collected  into  volumes  after  his  death.  Why  these 
entries  were  not  better  classified  in  the  completed 
Journals  is  rather  puzzling;  for  it  was  sometimes 
months  before  the  final  transfer  was  made  from 
the  notebook  to  the  bound  Journal  volume. 
Thoreau  was  a  person  of  mercantile  method,  and 
had  little  of  the  erratic  moods  of  his  friend  Chan- 
ning,  or  of  the  temporary  incapacities  of  Emerson 
to  give  expression  to  his  higher  thought.  All  three 
had  certain  peculiarities,  which  Emerson  frankly 
styled  "whim,"  and  this  was  true  also  of  Alcott, 
whose  power  of  original  thought  was  by  no  means 
equally  mated  with  a  power  of  written  expres 
sion.  In  Alcott's  case,  the  defect  was  heightened 
by  the  fact  that  in  conversation  he  was  often 
most  felicitous  in  the  choice  and  collocation  of 
words. 

Except  in  periods  of  extreme  physical  weakness, 
as  in  his  last  illness,  Thoreau  seemed  always  ready 
to  express  himself,  up  to  the  limit  of  his  most  sub 
tile  and  delicate  thought;  though  he  was  as  scrupu 
lous  as  Emerson  (and  as  Channing  was  unscrupu 
lous)  about  the  form  in  which  his  thought  should 
be  presented  to  the  world  in  print.  No  author 

[xi] 


PREFACE 

whose  manuscripts  have  ever  come  before  me,  in  a 
long  career  of  editing  and  commenting,  was  so 
constant  and  insistent  in  revising  what  he  had 
written;  so  that  some  of  his  manuscripts  are  from 
correction  practically  illegible.  But  in  spite  of  a 
certain  hesitation  of  manner,  —  which  was  long 
regarded  as  an  affectation  or  an  imitation,  con 
scious  or  unconscious,  of  Emerson's  manner,  — 
Thoreau,  like  Emerson,  was  ever  ready  in  conver 
sation.  Channing  pictured  him  as  "with  promi 
nent  lips,  pursed  up  with  meaning  and  thought 
when  silent,  and  giving  out  when  open  a  stream 
of  the  most  varied  and  unusual  and  instructive 
sayings."  I  can  testify  to  this  from  half  a  dozen 
years  of  daily  and  intimate  conversation,  on  a 
thousand  topics.  The  early  papers  here  collected 
and  printed  in  full  are  noteworthy  from  the  same 
felicity  in  expression,  the  same  vigor  and  inde 
pendence  of  thought,  and  a  similar  quaintness  of 
humor,  so  perceptible  in  his  finished  and  pub 
lished  writings,  long  since  given  to  the  world.  The 
love  of  paradox,  very  noticeable  in  The  Service, 
and  much  of  his  early  published  writing,  and  very 
irritating  to  some  of  his  critics,  is  perceptible  in  a 
few  of  the  college  essays,  where  he  was  sometimes 
defending  opinions  that  his  topic  required  him  to 
hold,  but  which  were  not  really  his  own.  The 

[xii] 


PREFACE 

paradox,  however,  was  actually  an  intermediate 
phase  of  his  style,  growing  out  of  the  general  exal 
tation  of  the  early  New  England  Transcendental- 
ists,  and  showed  itself  in  Emerson  in  the  form  of 
hyperbole,  which  adhered  to  him  from  first  to  last, 
and  has  given  rise  to  some  unfounded  views  of 
Thoreau' s  character  as  portrayed  by  Emerson. 

As  with  all  original  authors,  Thoreau  is  best 
read,  not  in  the  comments  and  guesses  of  others, — 
especially  of  the  professorial  or  pedantic  class,  in 
its  younger  specimens,  —  but  in  his  own  pages. 
Something,  not  easily  to  be  defined,  passes  from 
himself  to  his  readers,  which  differentiates  Tho 
reau  from  the  mass  of  naturalists,  and  even  from 
poet-naturalists  of  another  training,  such  as 
Hector  St.  John.  The  flavor  of  the  genuine,  un 
mistakable  Thoreau  is  found  in  his  writings,  — 
serious,  yet  suffused  with  humor;  mystical,  yet 
not  religious  in  your  fashion  or  mine;  full  of  the 
most  sensitive  and  loyal  spirit  of  friendship,  yet 
also  a  little  cold  and  pugnacious,  and  only  intelli 
gible  from  his  own  point  of  view.  Yet  in  his  effect 
on  the  reader  he  warrants  that  eulogy  and  that 
discrimination  which  led  Montaigne  to  say  of  his 
friend,  too  early  lost,  Etienne  de  la  Boetie,  that  he 
valued  what  he  said  and  did  because  it  was 
Etienne  and  not  another  friend  who  said  it  or 

[xiii] 


PREFACE 

who  did  it.  There  are  many  writers  on  Nature, 
but  there  is  only  one  Thoreau;  many  Stoics, 
ancient  and  modern,  but  only  this  one  affection 
ate  Stoic  since  Marcus  Aurelius. 

F.  B.  SANBORN. 
CONCORD,  January  3,  1917. 


Mr.  Sanborn  died  February  24, 1917,  before  the 
publication  of  this  book;  but  he  had  read  all  the 
proof  and  had  planned  in  part  the  list  of  illustra 
tions.  In  a  letter  to  the  Publishers  dated  January 
15, 1917,  he  had  expressed  the  intention  of  making 
somewhere  in  the  book  a  brief  statement  of  his 
method  of  dealing  with  quoted  matter.  This  state 
ment  had  apparently  been  left  for  insertion  in  the 
revised  proof  of  the  Preface,  which,  unfortunately, 
was  dispatched  to  him  only  on  the  very  day  of  his 
death.  It  remains  for  the  Publishers,  therefore, 
to  carry  out  the  author's  intention. 

Mr.  Sanborn  was  not  a  slavish  quoter,  and  in 
dealing  with  Thoreau's  Journals  and  those  other  of 
his  writings  which  Thoreau  himself  had  not  pre 
pared  for  publication,  he  used  the  privilege  of  an 
editor  who  is  thoroughly  familiar  with  his  author's 
subjects  and  habits  of  thought  to  rearrange  para- 

xiv 


PREFACE 

graphs,  to  omit  here,  to  make  slight  interpolations 
there,  and  otherwise  to  treat  the  rough  and  un 
polished  sentences  of  the  Journals,  letters,  etc., 
much  as  it  may  be  supposed  the  author  himself 
would  have  treated  them  had  he  prepared  them 
for  the  press.  If,  therefore,  the  reader  finds  occa 
sional  discrepancies  between  the  extracts  from 
Thoreau's  Journals  as  here  given  and  the  forms 
in  which  the  same  passages  appear  in  the  scrupu 
lously  exact  transcript  contained  in  the  published 
Journal,  he  is  not  to  set  them  down  to  carelessness, 
but  is  rather  to  thank  Mr.  Sanborn  for  making 
these  passages  more  orderly  and  more  readable. 


CONTENTS 

I.  ANCESTRY  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 1 

II.  THE  BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  OF  THOREAU      ...    29 

III.  COLLEGE  ESSAYS  OF  A  YOUTH  OF  GENIUS    .      .      .    54 

IV.  COLLEGE  ESSAYS  (CONCLUDED) 122 

V.  PENCIL-MAKING  SCHOOLMASTERS  AND  THEIR  SCHOOL    190 

VI.  THE  WEEK  ON  THE  RIVERS 219 

VII.  THOREAU  IN  LITERATURE 242 

VIII.  SYMBOLISM  AND  PARADOX 267 

IX.  THOREAU  AS  FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  AND  CITIZEN  .  .  283 
X.  THOREAU  AS  MAN  OF  LETTERS  AND  OF  AFFAIRS  .  314 

XI.  THOREAU  AS  AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE  .  .  336 
XII.  THE  JOURNEYINGS  OF  THOREAU 366 

XIII.  VILLAGE  SKETCHES,  CHIEFLY  FROM  THE  JOURNALS    .  416 

XIV.  SLAVERY  AND  JOHN  BROWN 466 

XV.  DEATH  AND  LITERARY  REBIRTH  OF  THOREAU    .      .  485 

APPENDIX 503 

A.  LIBRARY  OF  HENRY  D.  THOREAU  ....  505 

B.  A  LIST  OF  AUTHORS  READ  OR  TO  BE  READ  BY 

H.  D.  THOREAU 520 

C.  ASA  DUNBAR:  PARSON,  FREEMASON,  AND  AT 

TORNEY   522 

D.  THE    BOSTON    HOME    OF    THE  THOREAUS   IN 

PRINCE  STREET 526 

E.  THE  JONES  FAMILY  AND  THEIR  PROPERTY       .  528 

F.  LETTER  OF  Z.  R.  BROCKWAY 532 

INDEX 535 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU     .      .       .      Photogravure  Frontispiece 

From  the  crayon  made  in  1854  by  Samuel  W.  Rowse,  now  in 
the  Concord  Public  Library. 

MARY  (JONES)  DUNBAR,  GRANDMOTHER  OF  THOREAU  .      .      6 

From  a  silhouette,  made  probably  after  she  became  Mrs. 
Jonas  Minot,  in  the  collection  of  the  Concord  Antiquarian  Society. 

THOREAU'S  BIRTHPLACE  ON  THE  VIRGINIA  ROAD  ...    32 
From  a  drawing  by  Mary  Wheeler,  1897. 

JOHN  THOREAU,  FATHER  OF  HENRY  D.  THOREAU       .      .    36 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer  of  a  daguerre 
otype  then  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Lowell,  of  Bangor, 
Maine. 

LOUISA  DUNBAR,  AUNT  OF  THOREAU 46 

From  a  photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer,  probably  taken  from 
another  photograph. 

CONCORD  JAIL  IN  1777 82 

From  the  drawing  by  John  Wilson  in  the  Concord  Public  Li 
brary.  The  drawing,  which  bears  the  written  legend,  "Concord 
Jail  —  near  Boston  —  America,"  was  made  by  Wilson,  Clerk  to 
Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  when  he  and  General  Campbell  were 
confined  there  on  their  capture  off  Boston  by  a  French  priva 
teer.  This  is  the  jail  in  which  Thoreau's  great  uncles  Josiah  and 
Simeon  Jones  were  confined  as  Tories. 

LUCY  C.  (JACKSON)  BROWN 128 

From  a  photograph  by  Allen,  Boston,  owned  by  Miss  Maria 
Jane  Weir,  of  Concord. 

HELEN  THOREAU 192 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer  of  a  daguerreo 
type  then  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Elizabeth  Lowell. 

PRUDENCE  BIRD  WARD  (MRS.  JOSEPH  WARD)  AT  TWENTY-ONE  198 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer  of  a  miniature 
then  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Annie  J.  Ward,  of  Spencer,  Mass. 

xix 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Miss  PRUDENCE  WARD 202 

From  a  photograph  taken  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer  of  a  photograph 
then  in  the  possession  of  Miss  Annie  J.  Ward. 

THOMAS  CHOLMONDELEY 302 

From  a  photograph  in  the  Hosmer  collection,  now  owned  by 
Mr.  Herbert  W.  Hosmer,  of  Concord. 

THE  THOREAUS'  HOUSE  ON  MAIN  STREET       ....  326 
From  a  photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer. 

SOPHIA  THOREAU 338 

From  a  photograph  by  Alfred  W.  Hosmer,  probably  taken 
from  another  photograph. 

WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING,  THE  YOUNGER    ....  358 

From  the  photogravure  in  Channing's  Poems  of  Sixty-Five 
Years,  edited  by  Mr.  Sanborn  and  published  by  Mr.  James  H. 
Bentley,  Philadelphia. 

DANIEL  RICKETSON  IN  1862 386 

From  a  photograph  by  Bierstadt  Brothers,  New  Bedford,  in  the 
possession  of  Mr.  Walton  Ricketson. 

JANE  THOREAU 444 

From  a  photograph  by  J.  J.  Hawes,  Boston,  in  the  possession 
of  Mr.  George  T.  Thatcher,  of  Bangor. 

MARIA  THOREAU 474 

From  a  photograph  by  J.  J.  Hawes  in  the  possession  of  Mr. 
George  T.  Thatcher. 

The  photographs  of  John  Thoreau,  Helen  Thoreau,  and 
Louisa  Dunbar  were  kindly  furnished  by  Mr.  Edwin  B.  Hill,  of 
Mesa,  Arizona.  Those  of  Mrs.  and  Miss  Ward,  as  well  as  that 
of  Thomas  Cholmondeley,  are  reproduced  through  the  courtesy 
of  Mr.  Herbert  W.  Hosmer,  of  Concord. 


THE    LIFE    OF 
HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 


THE   LIFE   OF 
HENRY   DAVID  THOEEAU 

CHAPTER  I 

ANCESTRY  AND  SOCIAL  CONDITIONS 

IN  January,  1874,  meeting  my  neighbor  and 
friend  Emerson  at  the  Social  Circle  of  Concord 
(a  club  of  twenty-five  townsmen,  in  all  occupa 
tions),  of  which  he  had  been  a  member  for  more 
than  thirty  years,  and  I,  then  and  afterwards  for 
more  than  thirty,  —  neither  Alcott,  Hawthorne, 
Thoreau,  nor  Ellery  Channing  were  ever  mem 
bers,  —  our  talk  fell  upon  Henry  Thoreau.  He 
had  been  dead  for  nearly  twelve  years,  but  his 
"Life"  had  recently  been  published  by  his  inti 
mate  comrade,  Channing.  Emerson  spoke  of  him 
as  "a  person  not  accounted  for  by  anything  in  his 
antecedents,  his  birth,  his  education,  or  his  way  of 
life."  Something  like  this  was  said  by  Clarendon, 
of  Sir  Henry  Vane;  and  that  remark,  in  Thoreau's 
case,  has  long  put  me  upon  inquiry  as  to  the 
sources  of  his  genius  and  character,  which  led 
him,  as  Emerson  said,  "to  say  and  write  such  sur- 

[  1  1 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

prising  things."  We  must  believe  that  most  of  our 
traits  come  to  us,  modified  and  combined,  from 
the  long  procession  of  our  ancestors;  until  such 
time  as  our  own  free  will  has  changed  and  re 
modelled  our  mental  structure,  under  inspiration 
from  divine  sources,  —  in  which  both  Thoreau 
and  Emerson  had  implicit  faith.  I  therefore  seek 
in  this  chapter  to  trace  farther  than  has  yet  been 
done  the  ancestral  origins  of  this  extraordinary 
denizen  of  the  village  and  the  woodlands  of  his 
native  township,  —  in  which,  however,  his  family 
had  been  resident  less  than  a  quarter-century 
when  Henry  was  born  there,  July  12,  1817. 

Strange  mistakes  have  been  made  on  this  sub 
ject,  —  one  historian  of  American  literature  hav 
ing  told  his  readers  that  Thoreau  was  born  "of 
farmer  folk,  a  Connecticut  family,  recently  emi 
grated  from  France."  But  no  ancestor  of  his  ever 
lived  in  Connecticut;  while  the  latest  of  them  to 
emigrate  from  France  (if  any  did)  must  have 
lived  there  before  the  Tudors  reigned  in  England. 
The  Thoreaus  of  Jersey,  when  we  first  hear  of 
them  (about  1725),  were  merchants  in  St.  Helier, 
the  capital  of  Jersey,  a  Channel  Island  between 
France  and  England,  formerly  attached  to  the 
Duchy  of  Normandy.  Its  community  is  of  great 
antiquity,  where,  until  lately,  English  was  a  for- 


ANCESTRY 

eign  tongue.  When  the  Angevin  kings  of  England 
gave  up  Normandy,  Jersey  went  with  England, 
only  now  and  then  yielding  to  French  control. 
Its  language  continued  to  be  Norman-French, 
which  still  is  the  official  dialect  of  its  courts,  as 
it  long  was  in  England. 

No  Thoreaus  by  that  name  remain  now  in  Jer 
sey,  the  last,  Philippe  Thoreau,  having  emigrated 
to  New  Zealand  in  1876,  where  the  family  name  is 
probably  kept  up.  It  was  brought  to  Boston  in 
1773,  by  John  Thoreau,  a  seaman,  one  of  the  three 
sons  of  Mattre  Philippe  Thoreau,  who  in  or  about 
1720  was  born  at  St.  Helier,  the  son  of  a  wine- 
merchant,  and  carried  on  the  family  business.  His 
wife,  Marie  Le  Calais,  born  in  1723,  and  married 
in  1749,  outlived  her  husband  and  two  of  her 
three  sons,  dying  at  St.  Helier,  June  26,  1801,  a 
few  months  after  her  son  John  Thoreau  had  died  in 
Concord.  She  had  six  daughters,  several  of  whom 
married  in  England,  by  the  names  of  Pinkney, 
Le  Cappelain,  etc.  Her  son  Peter  Thoreau  died 
about  1810,  leaving  two  children,  Elizabeth  and 
Peter.  This  young  Peter  (born  in  1790,  died  in 
1867)  left  a  son  who  in  1896  was  employed  in  the 
Oxford  University  Press,  and  a  daughter  who 
married  in  Jersey  a  Mr.  Du  Pare,  and  may  be  still 
living  there.  Her  uncle  Philippe,  dying  in  1800, 

[3  ] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

left  two  sons  and  a  daughter,  both  married  in  1801 
and  with  children,  "living  in  a  good  way,"  but  in 
Grouville,  not  far  from  St.  Helier.  Of  Peter's 
nephews  in  England,  one,  John,  was  in  1806  a 
lieutenant  in  the  British  army,  and  had  been  in 
a  campaign  on  the  Continent;  "he  is  very  fond  of 
a  soldier's  life." 

It  will  thus  be  seen  that  the  Jersey  ancestors 
were  respectable  middle-class  people,  well  edu 
cated,  and  rising  in  the  social  scale.  John,  who 
migrated,  was  a  seaman,  —  also  a  respectable  em 
ployment  in  Jersey,  —  and  came  to  Boston  in  the 
hope  of  making  his  fortune.  At  first  he  found 
Boston  in  difficulties.  The  Stamp  Act  had  been 
passed  and  repealed,  but  other  taxes  were  levied 
by  Parliament,  and  Boston  had  nullified  the  tea- 
tax  by  throwing  a  cargo  of  the  herb  overboard  in 
Boston  Harbor.  In  consequence,  the  Boston  Port 
Bill  was  passed,  and  the  trade  of  the  town  embar 
goed.  John  Thoreau,  then  working  in  a  sail  loft  or 
some  other  outfitting  shop,  was  thrown  out  of 
work,  and  took  to  the  sea  (it  is  thought,  as  a  pri- 
vateersman).  During  the  Revolution  he  pros 
pered  in  privateering  and  commerce,  and  in  1781 
married  Jane  Burns,  the  daughter  of  a  Scotch 
emigrant  from  Stirling,  who  had  married  in  Bos 
ton  Sarah,  the  daughter  of  a  Quaker,  David 

[  4] 


ANCESTRY 

Orrok,  and  of  a  Hannah  Tillet,  who  may  have 
been  of  Huguenot  descent,  like  the  Bowdoins. 
John  and  Jane  Thoreau  had  a  good  house  in 
Prince  Street,  and  the  partners,  Thoreau  and 
Hayse,  a  shop  on  Long  Wharf,  where  my  mother's 
uncle,  Levi  Melcher,  was  one  of  their  clerks.  John 
Thoreau  had  been  one  of  nine  children;  by  his 
marriage  with  Miss  Burns  he  had  eight  sons  and 
daughters,  all  of  whom  survived  him.  Only  two  of 
the  eight  married,  however,  —  John,  the  father  of 
Henry,  and  Elizabeth,  who  married  a  Mr.  Billings, 
and  removed  to  Maine.  John  Thoreau  had  four 
children,  none  of  whom  married;  and  John's 
brother  David,  named  for  the  Quaker  grandfather, 
died  just  after  coming  of  age. 

On  the  maternal  side  Henry  Thoreau  had  an 
cestors  more  prolific  and  even  more  adventur 
ous  than  the  seafaring  and  migrating  Thoreaus. 
Cynthia  Dunbar,  the  youngest  child  of  Asa  Dun- 
bar  and  Mary  Jones,  was  born  in  1787,  a  few 
months  after  her  father's  death,  at  Keene,  New 
Hampshire,  where  the  family  had  lived  less  than 
ten  years.  Her  mother  was  one  of  the  fifteen  chil 
dren  of  Colonel  Elisha  Jones,  of  Weston,  near 
Concord,  and  the  only  daughter  among  them. 
Twelve  of  the  sons  lived  to  grow  up,  and  eight  of 
them  were  banished  from  the  United  States  and 

[  5  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

had  their  considerable  property  confiscated,  for 
joining  the  mother  country  in  her  effort  to  con 
quer  the  revolted  Colonies.  Colonel  Jones  himself 
escaped  banishment  only  by  death,  but  his  estate 
in  Weston  was  also  confiscated,  after  some  delay. 
He  had  taken  refuge  with  the  British  garrison  in 
Boston  in  1775,  and  died  and  was  buried  there  in 
January,  1776.  His  daughter  Mary  had  married, 
in  1772,  Rev.  Asa  Dunbar,  a  graduate  in  1767  of 
Harvard  College,  and  was  "settled"  as  pastorpf  a 
Congregational  church  in  Salem  at  the  time  of 
marriage.  On  the  removal  of  her  father  to  Boston 
in  1775,  Mrs.  Dunbar  returned  to  Colonel  Jones's 
fine  house  in  Weston,  to  care  for  her  mother,  and  to 
keep  house  for  her  brothers,  and  there  her  husband 
seems  to  have  resided  while  preaching  in  Salem. 

Asa  Dunbar  had  thrilling  experiences  before 
marriage.  In  1766,  while  a  Junior  at  college,  he 
had  headed  a  rebellion  there  which  for  a  time 
threatened  to  paralyze  President  Holyoke's  insti 
tution,  over  which  he  ruled  with  so  much  dignity. 
No  very  full  account  of  this  affair  has  been  printed 
of  late  years;  but  some  ten  years  ago  some  manu 
scripts  of  the  Weeks  family,  of  Greenland,  New 
Hampshire,  came  into  the  hands  of  Mr.  Good- 
speed,  who  allowed  me  to  copy  them  before  they 
were  sold  to  Harvard  University.  They  detailed 

[6] 


MARY   (JONES)  DUNBAR 


ANCESTRY 

in  a  humorous  vein,  but  with  attention  to  the 
main  facts,  the  origin,  progress,  and  adjustment 
of  this  serious  affair.  It  had  two  causes,  unsatis 
factory  food  at  the  college  commons,  and  misuse 
of  special  privileges  by  students. 

The  troubles  began  early  in  the  autumn  of  1766, 
when  Dunbar's  class  of  between  forty  and  fifty 
had  just  entered  on  its  Senior  year.  A  new  sever 
ity  in  the  offence  of  absence  from  morning  prayers 
had  been  decreed  by  the  Faculty.  The  time- 
honored  excuse,  "detentus  a  nuncio  paterno"  ("a 
message  from  my  father"),  being  no  longer  re 
ceived,  punishment  followed.  Dunbar,  Senior 
Sophister,  took  the  lead  in  demanding  better  fare, 
going  to  the  college  steward,  Belcher  Hancock, 
and  renewing  a  former  request  for  better  food,  — 
especially  stigmatizing  the  daily  butter.  He  was 
refused  and  threatened  with  expulsion  by  Han 
cock,  who  was  one  of  the  few  tutors.  The  students 
of  the  four  classes  (numbering  in  all  but  one  hun 
dred  and  sixty)  then  held  a  general  meeting  (Sep 
tember  23,  1766)  and  voted  that  they  would 
"resent  it  in  a  proper  manner"  should  Dunbar  be 
sent  away.  In  the  "nuncio  paterno"  grievance, 
they  further  voted  that  they  would  leave  Holden 
Chapel  in  a  body,  before  the  " weekly  bill"  was 
read,  unless  their  wrongs  were  redressed.  This 

[7] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

they  did,  with  much  noise,  and  there  was  even 
talk  of  withdrawing  wholly  from  college.  The 
trouble  lasted  a  week  or  two;  but  Dr.  Holyoke 
was  more  reasonable  than  young  George  III,  and 
yielded  to  a  modus  vivendi.  Dunbar's  action  was 
wholly  to  his  credit.  He  wrote  the  manifesto  put 
forth  by  the  whole  student  body,  justifying  their 
action,  and  was  one  of  the  four  Seniors  to  sign  it, 
the  others  being  Thomas  Bernard,  son  of  the 
royal  Governor  of  Massachusetts  and  afterwards 
Sir  Thomas,  Isaac  Smith,  and  Zephaniah  Briggs. 
It  was  also  signed  by  David  Green  (1768),  Ste 
phen  Peabody,  who  married  a  sister  of  John 
Adams  (1769),  and  George  Cabot,  Freshman. 
Cabot  never  graduated,  but  had  an  honorary 
degree  in  1779.  He  was  afterward  the  eminent 
Federalist  politician  of  Boston,  Senator  under 
Washington,  friend  of  Hamilton,  and  president  of 
the  Hartford  Convention.  Possibly  the  presence 
of  Governor  Bernard's  son  in  the  offending  class  of 
1767  may  have  had  much  to  do  with  the  forgive 
ness  of  the  offenders,  as  President  Quincy  hints 
in  his  brief  notice  of  this  greatest  of  the  Harvard 
rebellions.  It  gave  Dunbar  a  high  standing  among 
the  alumni,  and  doubtless  favored  his  early  ordina 
tion  at  Salem,  and  his  marriage  with  the  daughter 
of  Colonel  Jones  in  1772. 

[8] 


ANCESTRY 

The  Colonel  owned  two  slaves  and  much  land 
in  Massachusetts  and  Maine;  had  for  ten  years 
represented  Weston  in  the  Provincial  Assembly, 
and  in  January,  1774,  had  prevented  his  town 
from  adopting  the  plan  for  Committees  of  Cor 
respondence  and  a  Continental  Congress,  —  sure 
preliminaries  of  the  Revolution.  In  May  he  was 
chosen,  as  usual,  to  the  Assembly,  then  called  to 
meet  in  Boston.  This  was  his  last  glimmer  of  pop 
ularity;  in  September,  1774,  his  patriotic  rival, 
Bradyll  Smith,  represented  Weston  in  the  As 
sembly  at  Salem,  where  Parson  Dunbar  was 
preaching;  and  Colonel  Jones  soon  took  shelter 
in  Boston,  where  General  Gage  made  him  For 
age  Commissioner,  as  will  be  noticed  presently. 

Intermarriage  with  so  loyal  a  family  naturally 
brought  Dunbar  under  suspicion  by  the  Adamses 
and  other  patriotic  leaders;  and  he  was  obliged 
once  or  twice  to  declare  his  respect  for  the  Ameri 
can  cause,  in  public.  When  hostilities  began  at 
Lexington,  his  brothers-in-law  took  sides  with  the 
King's  troops,  and  one  of  them  showed  Earl 
Percy  how  to  find  the  short  way  to  Lexington,  to 
reinforce  the  regulars  fleeing  from  their  ill-advised 
excursion  to  Concord.  Another  brother,  Dr.  Jo- 
siah  Jones,  came  home  to  Weston  from  New 
Hampshire,  where  he  was  practising  medicine  at 

[9] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Hinsdale,  and  reported  himself  for  the  King's 
service  in  Boston.  His  father  at  once  made  him 
supercargo  of  a  captured  sloop  from  the  Maine 
coast  (the  Polly)  returning  from  Plymouth  to 
Arundel,  but  carried  as  a  prize  into  Boston.  "Be 
ing  solicited  by  Admiral  Graves's  secretary,"  said 
the  ingenuous  skipper  Smith,  "to  enter  His  Ma 
jesty's  service,  and  knowing  no  other  way  wherein 
I  could  possibly  make  my  escape,  I  entered  into 
said  service,  to  go  to  Windsor  in  Nova  Scotia  for 
hay  and  other  things."  In  an  evil  hour  for  Dr. 
Jones  and  his  friend  Dr.  Hicks,  from  the  region 
of  Plymouth,  they  went  on  board  the  Polly  to 
purchase  her  intended  freight  in  the  loyal  Colony 
of  Nova  Scotia.  "I  desired  the  captain  of  our 
convoy,"  says  the  shrewd  skipper,  "leave  to  sail; 
but  he  told  me  I  was  not  to  sail  till  to-morrow  at 
10  o'clock,  as  there  was  a  number  of  other  vessels 
in  the  same  employ,  and  should  all  sail  together. 
I  then  desired  leave  of  Mr.  Jones  to  haul  off  into 
the  Road,  and  obtained  leave.  It  being  dark,  as  I 
had  got  consent  of  our  Factor  to  sail,  I  embraced 
the  opportunity,  and  immediately  sailed  for 
Arundel,1  where  I  arrived  in  about  twenty-four 
hours,  and  delivered  up  Mr.  Jones  and  one  Jona 
than  Hicks." 

1  Now  Kennebunkport. 
[  10] 


ANCESTRY 

By  this  time  it  was  June  2,  Skipper  Smith  had 
forfeited  one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars,  but  had 
saved  his  Polly,  and  captured  two  Tories,  whom 
he  at  once  turned  over  to  the  Committee  of 
Safety.  This  Committee,  the  next  day,  June  3, 
reported  the  case  to  Sam  Adams's  Provincial 
Congress,  in  session  at  Watertown,  near  Weston, 
adding:  — 

A  number  of  the  King's  Arms,  with  cartridges,  were 
put  on  board  and  two  young  men,  one  named  Josiah 
Jones,  and  the  other  Jona.  Hicks,  were  put  on  board 
at  Boston,  —  one  or  both  as  supercargo,  with  a  packet 
of  letters,  orders  and  other  papers. 

By  June  10,  the  youths  with  their  papers  were 
before  a  Committee  of  the  Watertown  Congress, 
which  at  once  voted :  — 

That  Josiah  Jones,  taken  from  the  sloop  Polly,  be 
sent  with  a  sufficient  guard  to  the  Town  of  Concord, 
and  committed  to  the  common  Gaol,  there  to  remain 
until  the  further  order  of  Congress  or  House  of  Repre 
sentatives  of  this  Colony. 

Further  orders  were  not  found  necessary.  Mary 
Dunbar  had  taken  the  case  into  her  consideration 
—  driving  over  the  seven  miles  between  her 
father's  house  and  the  wooden  prison  at  Concord, 
she  carried  to  her  brother  and  his  companion 

[HI 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

palatable  food,  in  which  files  were  concealed,  with 
which  the  young  rogues  cut  away  the  prison  bars, 
and  escaped  by  night  to  Colonel  Jones's  cider- 
mill,  where  Black  Cicero  reported  them  early  the 
next  morning.  Capturing  a  neighbor's  horse  in 
one  of  the  great  pastures  of  Weston,  Mrs.  Dun- 
bar  had  him  harnessed  into  one  of  the  Jones 
chaises,  in  which  the  captives  made  their  way  to 
Falmouth  (now  Portland)  and  there,  being  sup 
plied  with  money  at  Weston,  they  made  their 
way  to  the  home  of  Nathan  Jones,  a  son  of  the 
Colonel,  in  Gouldsborough,  and  from  there  to 
the  loyal  colonies. 

This  took  place  some  time  after  the  battle  of 
Bunker  Hill,  —  for  on  that  day  Mrs.  Dunbar,  as 
she  said  afterward,  carried  a  basket  of  cherries 
(with  more  files,  no  doubt)  to  her  brother  in 
bonds;  and  her  husband,  seeking  to  drive  across 
from  Weston  to  Salem  to  preach  there,  found  the 
intervening  country  so  disturbed  by  the  move 
ment  of  troops  that  he  was  fain  to  return  to 
Weston.  Nathan  Jones  in  Maine  was  so  strongly 
suspected  of  Toryism  that  he  had  much  difficulty 
in  keeping  out  of  prison,  but  remained  nomi 
nally  American,  and  died  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States.  Stephen  Jones,  who  joined  the  British 
army  on  the  day  of  the  Concord  Fight,  was  the 

[12] 


ANCESTRY 

one  who  guided  Lord  Percy.  Simeon,  who  had 
been  the  clerk  of  his  brother  Daniel's  court  at 
Hinsdale,  was  imprisoned  in  Concord  jail  for 
aiding  his  brother  Josiah  to  escape,  but  himself 
escaped  in  1777,  while  Sir  Archibald  Campbell  was 
himself  a  prisoner  there,  before  his  exchange  for 
Colonel  Ethan  Allen,  who  had  been  captured  in 
Canada,  in  1776.  Stephen  afterwards  served  in 
the  Royal  American  Dragoons  under  Colonel 
Thompson  (afterward  Sir  Benjamin  Thompson 
and  Count  Rumford),  under  whose  command  he 
fought  in  South  Carolina  against  Marion  and  his 
men  by  the  Santee  River. 

The  Concord  prison  in  which  these  brothers  of 
Mrs.  Dunbar  were  confined,  and  from  which  they 
escaped,  was  not  that  stone  jail  in  which  Henry 
Thoreau  afterwards  spent  a  night,  and  with 
which  Bronson  Alcott  was  threatened  two  years 
earlier.  The  older  jail  was  of  wood,  and  a  clerk  of 
Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  who  was  long  a  prisoner 
there,  made  a  sketch  of  it,  which  has  long  hung 
in  the  Town  Library  of  Concord.  It  stood  on  the 
main  street  in  the  midst  of  the  village,  near  the 
oldest  cemetery,  and  nearly  opposite  the  present 
library.  The  family  tradition  concerning  these 
imprisonments  was  written  down  by  Henry  in 
one  of  the  Journals  before  1846,  since  destroyed. 

[IS] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

It  runs  thus,  defective  and  erroneous  in  some 
points,  but  worth  preserving  here:  — 

My  mother's  grandfather,  Colonel  Elisha  Jones,  was 
the  owner  and  inhabitant  of  an  estate  in  Weston,  be 
fore  the  Revolution.  He  was  a  man  of  standing  and 
influence  among  his  neighbors,  but  was  a  Tory.  He 
had  fourteen  sons  and  one  daughter,  —  namely, 
Nathan,  Daniel,  Ephraim,  Israel,  Elias,  Josiah,  Sim 
eon,  Mary  (eighth  child),  Stephen,  Charles,  Edward, 
Silas,  Philemon  and  Jonas.  Simeon  was  confined  in 
Concord  Jail  four  months  and  a  fortnight.  [Query, 
nine  months?]  His  sister  brought  every  meal  he  had 
from  Weston;  he  was  afraid  he  might  be  poisoned  else. 
On  the  17th  of  June,  1775,  she  brought  over  ripe  cher 
ries  in  her  chaise.  There  was  one  Hicks,  and  one  more, 
imprisoned  with  him.  They  secreted  knives  furnished 
them  with  their  food,  sawed  the  grates  off  and  escaped 
to  Weston.  Hid  in  the  cider-mill.  Mary  heard  they 
were  in  the  mill ;  was  frightened  because  somebody  had 
told  her  there  were  two  or  three  blackbirds  hid  that 
day  somewhere.  She  met  Cicero  (?)  who  did  not  know 
her;  took  old  Baldwin's  (the  sheriff's  who  took  up 
Simeon  Jones)  horse  from  the  lower  part  of  Weston. 
Simeon  went  to  Portland  with  him,  and  pawned  him 
for  two  bushels  of  potatoes;  then  wrote  back  to  Bald 
win  where  he'd  find  his  horse,  by  paying  charges. 

What  is  here  said  of  Simeon,  who  was  not  ar 
rested  till  his  brother  Josiah  had  escaped,  was 
true  of  Josiah  and  Dr.  Hicks;  and  it  is  scarcely 


ANCESTRY 

probable  that  Simeon  escaped  in  the  same  way 
they  did.  Perhaps  he  was  aided  to  get  away  by 
Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  who  had  certain  privi 
leges  due  to  his  rank  as  member  of  Parliament  and 
Colonel  of  a  Scotch  regiment,  and  did  occasion 
ally  dine  at  the  neighboring  house  of  Captain 
Duncan  Ingraham,  a  friend  of  Colonel  Jones,  and, 
like  him,  a  loyalist.  The  tradition  was  noted 
down  from  the  narration  of  Thoreau's  mother, 
aunts,  or  grandmother,  and  suffered  the  inaccu 
racies  of  oral  tradition.  It  was  not  from  dread  of 
poison,  but  because  the  prison-fare  was  meagre, 
as  Sir  Archibald  complained,  that  Mrs.  Dunbar 
carried  food  from  her  mother's  ample  table.1 

1  The  fine  old  mansion  of  Colonel  Jones,  where  Mrs.  Dunbar  and 
her  husband  resided  in  1775-76,  is  still  standing  in  Weston  in  good 
condition,  but  removed  from  the  estate,  which  was  confiscated 
with  it  after  the  Peace  of  1783.  It  is  now  in  the  village,  and  is  the 
summer  residence  of  Mr.  Charles  Fiske,  a  nephew  of  Mrs.  Ripley, 
of  the  Old  Manse.  The  land  was  the  property  of  General  Charles 
Paine,  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  who  sold  the  house  to  Mr.  Fiske 
for  removal.  In  a  meadow  of  the  Jones  estate,  some  twenty  years 
ago,  Mr.  Alfred  Hosmer,  of  Concord,  found  the  English  cuckoo- 
plant,  often  mentioned  by  Shakespeare,  growing  wild,  as  it  now 
does  in  Concord.  Apparently  it  was  brought  over  to  the  Jones 
garden,  whence  it  escaped  into  the  meadow. 

In  this  house  of  the  Joneses,  Rev.  Asa  Dunbar,  in  September, 
1775,  wrote  and  published  at  Cambridge,  in  a  patriotic  weekly,  an 
explanation  of  his  clerical  conduct  on  the  occasion  of  a  solemn  Fast 
proclaimed  by  the  Philadelphia  Congress,  and  ordered  by  the 
Massachusetts  Legislature.  It  was  addressed  to  the  Weston  Com 
mittee  of  Safety,  who  "receive  it  as  satisfactory,  and  think  it 

f  15  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Cicero  was  one  of  Colonel  Jones's  black  slaves, 
and  probably  was  in  the  secret.  The  cider-mill 
was  at  some  distance  from  the  house,  and  in  that 
season  not  frequented.  Thoreau  went  on  with  his 
record :  — 

All  but  three  of  the  sons  of  Colonel  Jones  went 
abroad,  —  to  England,  Canada,  New  Brunswick, 
Nova  Scotia,  and  Maine.  Four  settled  in  one  town, 
Sissiboo,  now  called  Weymouth,  in  Nova  Scotia,  — 
Simeon,  Josiah,  Elisha,  and  Stephen,  —  Nathan,  the 
eldest  son,  to  Gouldsborough  on  Frenchman's  Bay  in 
Maine. 

A  fuller  statement  of  the  location  of  these 
brothers  will  be  found  in  the  Appendix.  Charles 
had  died  in  Virginia  during  the  war,  probably  in 
one  of  the  British  regiments  invading  there.  Jonas, 
the  thirteenth  son,  being  an  officer  in  the  British 
army,  went  with  his  regiment  to  England  and  died 
there. 

The  fortunes  of  Asa  Dunbar  as  parson,  coun 
sellor  at  law,  patriot,  and  Freemason  need  to  be 

ought  to  release  him  from  any  unfavorable  suspicions  that  have 
arisen  to  his  disadvantage."  This  paper  and  his  Masonic  oration  at 
Lancaster  will  be  quoted  later.  He  never  returned  to  his  pulpit, 
but  studied  law  with  a  friend,  Joshua  Atherton,  who  settled  in 
New  Hampshire,  and  Dunbar  himself  practised  law  in  Keene,  New 
Hampshire,  where  he  died  in  1787,  a  few  months  before  the  birth 
of  his  daughter,  afterwards  Mrs.  Thoreau. 

The  mother  of  Mrs.  Dunbar,  Mrs.  Colonel  Jones  of  Weston, 
died  at  Mrs.  Dunbar's  house  in  Keene. 

[  16  ] 


ANCESTRY 

exposed  a  little  farther,  since  he  so  soon  vanishes 
from  his  family  record,  at  the  age  of  little  more  than 
forty.  His  connection  with  the  college  rebellion 
which  first  brought  him  into  notice  in  good  com 
pany,  has  been  preserved  for  us,  in  some  detail, 
by  Clement  Weeks,  a  youth  of  eighteen,  son  of  a 
rich  farmer  in  Greenland,  New  Hampshire,  who 
entered  Harvard  in  1768,  and  graduated  in  1772. 
His  college  notebook,  partly  humorous  and  partly 
serious,  has  come  down  to  President  Lowell's  time; 
and  discloses  the  confession  of  the  students  and 
the  agreement  with  the  Faculty,  in  which  Presi 
dent  Holyoke  showed  unexpected  leniency  to  the 
active  offenders.  In  1772,  after  studying  divinity 
for  several  years,  Dunbar  became  the  colleague 
of  Rev.  Thomas  Barnard  at  Salem  and  the  hus 
band  of  Mary  Jones;  living  with  her,  an  only 
daughter,  at  the  mansion  of  Colonel  Jones.  As 
the  inmate  of  a  Tory  household  he  had  a  difficult 
part  to  play.  Most  of  his  Salem  parishioners  were 
patriots;  his  wife  was  keeping  house  for  her  father 
and  his  English  guests  at  Weston,  twenty-five 
miles  off.  John  Hancock,  a  proscribed  patriot, 
was  presiding  over  a  Continental  Congress  in 
Philadelphia,  and  was  treasurer  of  Harvard  Col 
lege,  of  which  Dr.  Langdon,  a  patriotic  scholar  and 
preacher,  had  become  President;  while  Samuel 

(171 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Adams  had  a  Provincial  Congress  in  session  at 
Watertown,  which  had  sent  Dunbar's  brother- 
in-law  Josiah  to  Concord  jail,  and  his  wife  was 
supplying  him  with  means  of  escape.  In  the  April 
previous,  Hancock's  Congress  had  ordered  a  Co 
lonial  Fast  for  July  20,  and  Adams's  Congress 
had  insisted  that  it  be  rigidly  observed  in  Massa 
chusetts.  In  some  way  or  other,  either  at  Salem 
or  in  Weston,  Dunbar  had  given  offence  to  patri 
ots  hi  his  town,  and  the  Weston  Committee  had 
called  him  to  account.  He  therefore  sent  this  note 
to  the  Committee  of  Weston,  and  published  it  in 
the  "Essex  Gazette,"  issued  from  the  college  build 
ings  in  Cambridge:  — 

Having  been  acquainted  by  the  Gentlemen,  the 
Committee  of  Correspondence  in  Weston,  with  some 
uneasiness  arising  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  from 
the  conduct  of  myself  and  family  upon  Fast  day,  the 
20th  of  last  July;  and  having  a  desire  to  live  in 
good  fellowship  with  every  friend  of  American  liberty, 
I  beg  leave  publicly  to  declare  that  the  part  I  bore 
in  those  transactions  that  gave  offence  was  dictated 
solely  by  the  principles  of  religion  and  humanity,  with 
no  design  of  displeasing  any  one:  and  that  I  am  sorry 
it  was,  in  the  eyes  of  one  of  my  countrymen  attended 
with  any  disgusting  circumstances.  ...  As  it  has  been 
suspected  that  I  despised  the  Day,  and  the  authority 
that  appointed  it,  I  must,  in  justice  to  myself,  and 

[  18) 


ANCESTRY 

from  the  love  of  truth,  affirm,  that  I  very  highly  re 
spect  and  revere  that  authority;  and,  were  it  not  from 
the  appearance  of  boasting,  could  add,  that  I  believe 
no  person  observed  it  with  greater  sincerity  than 

ASA  DUNBAR. 
WESTON,  September  8, 1775. 

We  are  left  in  doubt  what  his  conduct  had  been, 
—  possibly  praying  that  King  George  might  have 
that  wisdom  he  so  much  needed,  —  or  praying 
for  those  in  prison,  among  whom  was  his  wife's 
brother  Josiah  (not  Simeon,  who  did  not  get  there 
till  later).  He  did  pray  for  King  George  and  the 
royal  family  in  1774,  and  afterward  gave  thanks 
for  American  victories.  Josiah  remained  in  bonds 
four  months  at  least,  or  until  October;  and  Simeon, 
perchance,  for  nine.  Meanwhile,  the  parson  was 
managing  the  farm  of  Colonel  Jones  (for  a  time 
on  his  widow's  "thirds,"  as  John  Thoreau  man 
aged  his  mother-in-law's  in  Concord,  fifty  years 
later) ;  and  was  driving  the  Jones  cattle  to  their 
pasture  in  Princeton,  through  Lancaster,  where 
the  Masonic  lodge  was.  His  health  was  not  good, 
and  he  had  retired  from  his  Salem  pulpit,  which 
he  finally  gave  up  in  1779,  when  the  parish  voted 
him  seven  hundred  pounds,  lawful  money,  to  end 
their  pecuniary  contract,  but  in  paper  money  at 
much  discount.  He  was  studying  law,  and  was  an 

[19] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

active  Freemason  in  that  year;  and  he  came 
down  to  Lancaster  from  Keene  in  June,  1781,  to 
give  a  fervid  Masonic  address,  which  has  been 
twice  printed,  and  offers  a  favorable  view  of  his 
heart  and  of  his  style.  He  founded  a  sister  lodge 
in  Keene,  which  met  at  his  house,  and  seems  to 
have  involved  him  in  some  debts.  There  he  had 
law  students,  and  was  a  social  favorite,  appar 
ently,  as  his  family  were  after  his  death.  They 
had  Dunbar  relatives  in  Keene,  one  of  whom, 
Mrs.  Ralston,  spoke  of  Cynthia  in  her  youth,  as 
a  handsome,  dark-eyed  girl,  singing  with  a  sweet 
voice.  Her  gift  in  conversation  was  well  known 
in  most  of  the  village  homes  of  Concord. 

Mary  Jones  (Mrs.  Dunbar)  was  born  in  1748, 
the  ninth  child  of  the  Jones  fifteen;  but  one  of  her 
elder  brothers  had  died  in  childhood  so  that  she 
was  practically  the  eighth,  as  her  grandson  said. 
She  lived  until  1830,  when  Henry  was  in  his  four 
teenth  year,  and  he  remembered  her  well.  He  was 
born  in  the  house  of  her  second  husband,  Captain 
Jonas  Minot  of  Concord,  of  whom  and  her  his 
Journal  had  stories  to  tell.  In  1795,  before  she 
married  Minot,  she  took  her  children  from  Keene 
and  went  on  a  visit  to  her  brothers  in  Maine  and 
the  British  Provinces,  of  which  journey  Henry  had 
this  to  record:  — 

[20] 


ANCESTRY 

With  her  three  daughters,  Sophia,  aged  fourteen, 
Louisa  ten,  and  Cynthia  eight,  —  health  failing,  —  she 
went  to  visit  her  brother  Nathan  at  Frenchman's  Bay, 
and  her  four  brothers  at  Sissiboo  afterward.  They 
took  passage  in  the  Fall  of  1795  in  a  ninety-ton  wood- 
sloop,  with  a  crew  of  three  men  besides  the  captain. 
They  went  at  random  down  from  Boston;  the  hands 
said  they  had  touched  every  rock  between  Boston  and 
Goldsborough,  —  the  sloop  going  down  empty.  [She 
brought  firewood  from  Maine  to  Boston.] 

Coming  up  she  had  all  her  sails  blown  away  (not  sea 
worthy)  ;  then  had  fallen  down  into  the  stream  to  bend 
on  her  new  sails.  The  Dunbars  were  put  on  board 
Saturday  afternoon,  by  a  boat;  found  her  down  the 
stream.  Sunday  was  fine  weather,  but  they  were  all 
sick;  were  all  in  their  berths  at  midnight,  Sunday,  when 
they  struck  on  Matinicus  Rock.  "All  hands  on  deck!" 
The  water  came  in  so  fast  as  to  wet  Mrs.  Dunbar  be 
fore  they  got  up  on  deck.  She  exclaimed,  "Captain, 
where  are  we? "  "God  Almighty  alone  knows,  for  I  do 
not,"  said  he,  who  was  pulling  a  rope. 

Out  of  this  danger  they  safely  came  back  to 
Keene,  where,  and  in  Concord,  Mrs.  Dunbar 
survived  most  of  her  brothers.  Elias  married  a 
daughter  of  Sheriff  Baldwin,  whose  wife  was  a 
Jones,  —  which  may  account  for  the  use  of  the 
Baldwin  horse  in  the  escape  to  Maine.  Josiah 
had  become  a  commissary  in  the  British  service. 
Stephen,  Simeon,  and  Jonas  also  fought  against 

[21  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

their  countrymen.  Jonas  continued  in  the  army, 
married  an  heiress,  Miss  Mason,  in  England,  and 
died  there.  Simeon  married  a  Miss  Williams,  of 
Roxbury,  a  distant  cousin;  for  the  fighting  Wil- 
liamses  of  Berkshire  were  cousins  of  Colonel 
Jones.  Ephraim 'Williams  was  a  first  cousin  — 
he  for  whom  Williamstown  and  Williams  College 
were  named,  and  who  was  killed  at  the  battle  of 
Lake  George  in  1757.  Charles  Jones,  who  was  in 
Harvard  College  when  the  Revolution  broke  out, 
and  who  died  early,  was  remembered  by  Mrs. 
Dunbar  in  the  name  of  her  only  son,  Charles,  the 
first  child  who  survived,  though  not  born  till  1780, 
after  his  parents  had  left  Salem  and  Weston,  which 
was  their  occasional  home  until  1779,  when  they 
went  to  Keene. 

The  result  of  the  choice  of  sides  in  the  contest,  by 
Colonel  Jones  and  his  sons,  was  their  exile,  and 
the  confiscation  of  their  property,  except  that  of 
the  four  brothers,  Nathan,  Daniel,  Isaac,  and 
Elias,  who  remained  in  the  United  States  — 
Daniel  becoming  a  lawyer  of  some  note  at  Hins- 
dale  near  Keene.  Simeon  was  named  by  Daniel  as 
the  clerk  of  his  law-court,  and  Josiah  went  to 
Hinsdale  to  practise  medicine.  After  his  banish 
ment  he  changed  his  profession  to  the  law,  became 
a  judge  in  Nova  Scotia,  and  died  at  Annapolis, 


ANCESTRY 

not  far  from  Weymouth.  The  effect  of  the  Revo 
lution  was  to  impoverish  this  once  prosperous 
family,  wherever  they  might  reside.  But  they 
never  lost  their  social  respectability. 

Frenchman's  Bay,  where  their  risky  voyage  to 
Boston  began  for  Mary  Jones  and  her  daughters,  is 
formed  by  the  long  peninsula  of  Gouldsborough 
on  one  side,  and  by  Mount  Desert  Island  on  the 
other,  which  had  been  granted  by  his  Province 
of  Massachusetts  to  Sir  Francis  Bernard,  father 
of  Sir  Thomas,  Dunbar's  classmate  at  Harvard. 
Matinicus,  where  they  ran  aground,  is  an  island 
nearer  Boston,  at  the  entrance  of  Frenchman's 
Bay.  Not  long  after  this  hazardous  voyage  Mrs. 
Dunbar  married  Jonas  Minot,  in  whose  farm 
house,  twenty  years  later,  Henry  Thoreau  was 
born,  at  the  lowest  stage  of  the  fortunes  of  his 
parents.  During  his  period  of  prosperity,  Captain 
Minot  had  owned  much  wild  land  in  New  Hamp 
shire.  On  one  occasion  he  and  his  wife  visited  this 
property,  in  the  present  town  of  Wilmot;  an 
excursion  that  Thoreau  described  in  his  Journal, 
perhaps  from  his  uncle  Charles  Dunbar's  account, 
—  losing  nothing  by  either  narrator:  — 

I  have  been  told  (a  tradition  in  our  family)  that 
when  my  Grandmother  with  her  second  husband,  the 
Captain,  first  went  into  Kearsarge  Gore  in  her  chaise, 

[231 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

—  where,  by  the  way,  the  inhabitants  baked  a  pig  in 
expectation  of  their  coming,  which,  as  they  did  not 
come  immediately,  was  kept  baking  for  three  days,  — 
her  chaise  so  frightened  the  geese  in  the  road  that  they 
actually  rose  and  flew  half  a  mile.  And  the  sheep  all 
ran  over  the  hills,  with  the  pigs  after  them;  and  some 
of  the  horses  they  met  broke  their  tackling  or  threw 
their  riders;  so  that  they  had  to  put  their  chaise  down 
several  times,  to  save  life. 

When  they  drove  up  to  the  (Baptist)  meeting-house, 
snap,  snap  went  the  bridles  of  several  of  the  horses 
that  were  tied  there,  and  they  scattered  without  a 
benediction.  Though  it  was  in  the  middle  of  sermon- 
time,  the  whole  congregation  rushed  out,  "for  they 
thought  it  was  a  leather  judgment  a-cominV  The 
people  about  the  door  got  hold  of  and  got  into  the 
vehicle,  so  that  "they  liked  to  have  shaken  it  all  to 
pieces'*  with  curiosity.  The  minister's  wife  got  in,  too, 
and  "tetered  up  and  down  a  little";  but  she  thought  it 
was  "a  darn  tottlish  thing,"  and  said  she  "would  n't 
ride  in  it  for  nothin'  in  the  world."  There  was  no 
service  in  the  afternoon. 

The  next  day  some  old  women  took  their  knitting- 
work  and  sat  in  the  chaise.  As  my  Grandfather  had 
a  lawsuit  with  a  "  witch- woman "  there,  the  people 
prophesied  that  she  would  upset  his  chaise,  till  they 
remembered  that  there  was  silver-plating  enough 
about  it  and  the  harness,  to  lay  all  the  witches  in  the 
country. 

My  Grandmother  also  instructed  that  people  how 
to  make  coffee,  which  was  pounded  in  a  mortar;  and 

[24] 


ANCESTRY 

by  the  time  she  went  out  of  town,  the  sound  of  the 
mortar  was  heard  in  all  that  land.  By  this  time,  no 
doubt,  she  and  Ceres  are  equally  regarded  as  mytho 
logical,  by  their  posterity. 

These  family  tales,  apt  to  be  exaggerated  by 
the  humorous  and  embroidering  faculty  of  the 
Dunbars,  Joneses,  and  Thoreaus,  explain  in  part 
the  peculiarities  that  descended  to  the  persons 
whom  I  knew;  in  which,  as  Tacitus  says  of  the 
customs  of  Marseilles,  where  Agricola  was  edu 
cated,  "provincial  frugality  and  urban  courtesy 
were  mingled  and  well  combined." 

Like  the  Joneses,  the  Dunbars,  of  Bridgewater, 
were  a  large  family.  Samuel,  the  son  of  James,  of 
Hingham,  had  thirteen  children  besides  Asa;  of 
the  fourteen,  eleven  were  sons  and  three  daugh 
ters,  giving  the  Thoreaus  a  great  many  cousins. 
But  in  the  three  households  with  which  this  book 
is  concerned,  prosperity  disappeared  between 
1776  and  1817  (the  year  of  Henry's  birth)  either 
by  reason  of  the  Revolution  and  confiscation,  or 
of  orphanage  (by  the  death  of  John  Thoreau  the 
Jerseyman),  or  by  the  later  quarrel  with  England, 
between  1804  and  1816.  The  large  estate  of  the 
Joneses  was  mostly  confiscated,  or  lost,  in  the  long 
struggle  of  the  American  Revolution;  while  the  dis 
persion  of  her  relatives  to  the  British  provinces,  to 

[25] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

England,  or  to  remote  parts  of  New  England,  kept 
them  apart  from  Mrs.  Minot.  John  Thoreau  the 
Jerseyman  for  years  kept  up  little  communication 
with  his  Jersey  family,  during  the  war;  and  the 
foundation  of  his  fortune  in  Boston  was  laid  by 
privateering  against  English  commerce.  His  cas 
ual  meeting  at  sea  with  the  first  President  Adams 
is  only  traditional,  but  highly  probable.  In  his 
Journal  for  June  11,  1853,  four  years  after  his 
sister  Helen's  death,  Henry  wrote:  — 

I  remember  Helen's  telling  me  that  John  Marston, 
of  Taunton,  told  her  that  he  was  on  board  a  vessel  dur 
ing  the  Revolution,  which  met  another  vessel,  —  and, 
as  I  think,  one  hailed  the  other,  —  and  a  French  name 
being  given  could  not  be  understood,  whereupon  a 
sailor,  probably  aboard  his  vessel,  ran  out  on  the 
bowsprit  and  shouted  "La  Sensible,"  and  that  sailor's 
name  was  Thoreau.  My  father  has  an  idea  that  he 
stood  on  the  wharf  and  cried  this  to  the  bystand 
ers.  .  .  . 

I  find  from  his  Diary  that  John  Adams  set  sail 
from  Port  Louis  at  L'Orient  in  the  French  frigate 
Sensible,  Captain  Chavagnes,  June  17th,  1779,  the 
Bonhomme  Richard,  Captain  Jones,  and  four  other 
vessels  being  in  company  at  first,  and  the  Sensible 
arrived  at  Boston  the  2d  of  August.  On  the  13th  of 
November  following,  he  set  out  for  France  again  in  the 
same  frigate  from  Boston,  and  he  says  that  a  few  days 
before  the  24th,  being  at  the  last  date  "  on  the  Grand 

[26] 


ANCESTRY 

Bank  of  Newfoundland,"  "we  spoke  an  American  pri 
vateer,  the  General  Lincoln,  Captain  Barnes."  If  the 
above-mentioned  incident  occurred  a.t  sea,  it  was 
probably  on  this  occasion. 

The  Marstons,  of  Taunton,  were  kinsmen  of  the 
Marston-Watsons,  of  Plymouth,  Thoreau's  friends, 
and  of  the  late  Commodore  John  Marston,  of  the 
American  navy.  The  incident  may  have  dwelt  in 
John  Marston's  mind,  as  being  the  first  time  he 
had  heard  the  name  Thoreau;  indeed  this  emi 
grant  was  the  first  man  who  bore  that  name  from 
Jersey  to  New  England,  where  it  is  now  extinct. 
Other  Jersey  and  Guernsey  names  are  common 
here,  —  Langlais,  Le  Breton,  Janvrin,  Cabot, 
Graffort,  Sohier,  etc.,  —  but  this  one  scion  of  a 
race,  nearly  perished  from  Jersey  itself,  is  all  that 
ever  took  root  here,  and  that  for  little  more  than 
a  century  —  from  1773  to  1881. 1 

Certain  traits  in  which  Henry  seemed  peculiar 
might  be  traced  back  to  this  Channel  island, 
inhabited  by  a  composite,  pugnacious,  sturdy, 
thrifty,  equalized  but  privileged  people  of  the 
old  Duchy  of  Normandy.  Their  rocky  island  had 
been  known  to  Celts,  Phoenicians,  Carthaginians, 

1  The  Peter  Thoreau  mentioned  in  a  former  note  bought  in 
1782  a  house  on  Cambridge  Street,  Boston,  which  he  sold  in 
September,  1784,  to  Josiah  Harris  for  four  hundred  dollars,',  with 
land  adjacent. 

[27] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Romans,  Gauls,  Goths,  Scandinavians,  Normans, 
and  other  branches  of  the  Indo-European  and 
Semitic  families.  They  were  as  mixed  as  any 
population  in  Europe;  but  for  five  or  six  centu 
ries  had  enjoyed  special  privileges  arising  from 
their  position  intermediate  between  the  warring 
nations  of  France  and  England.  King  John  of 
England  had  given  them  exemption  from  tariffs, 
and  allowed  them  to  be  governed  by  their  own 
laws  and  usages.  They  had  resisted  conquest,  and 
extended  trade  and  fishery;  their  customs  were 
aneient,  their  language  neither  good  French  nor 
good  English;  and  yet  in  it  they  had  gained  more 
education  of  its  own  sort  than  most  of  the  sub 
jects  of  the  English  crown.  Privateering,  a  kind  of 
legalized  piracy,  was  a  habit  with  them;  so  that 
young  John  Thoreau  readily  fell  into  it  when  he 
got  to  Boston.  His  marriage  with  a  Scotch  lassie, 
Jane  Burns,  whose  father  had  lately  died  in  Scot 
land,  introduced  a  fresh  Scottish  element  among 
his  descendants,  who,  as  his  daughter  Maria  said 
of  herself,  might  have  "the  vivacity  of  the  French 
and  the  superstition  of  the  Scotch."  To  all  this, 
genteel  poverty  was  added  in  Henry  Thoreau's 
immediate  family,  for  reasons  that  will  appear  in 
the  'next  chapter. 


CHAPTER  H 

THE  BOYHOOD  AND  YOUTH  OF  THOREAU 

ALTHOUGH  all  the  children  of  John  Thoreau  and 
Cynthia  Dunbar  (who  were  married  in  Concord 
in  1812)  well  remembered  their  grandmother 
Mary  Jones,  of  Weston,  none  of  them  ever  saw 
their  grandfather  John  Thoreau,  of  Jersey,  who 
had  died  at  Concord  in  1801.  His  privateering  had 
given  him  a  fund  for  mercantile  ventures,  and  he 
was  a  prosperous  merchant  on  the  Long  Wharf,  at 
the  foot  of  State  Street,  for  some  twenty  years,  be 
fore  he  took  up  his  residence  in  Concord,  buying  the 
house  which  is  now  a  portion  of  the  Colonial  Inn, 
on  the  public  Square,  opposite  the  Court  House 
there.  His  house  in  Boston  was  on  Prince  Street 
at  the  North  End,  and  it  continued  to  be  the  prop 
erty  of  his  children  for  many  years  after  his  death. 
His  first  wife,  Jane,  had  died  in  1797,  leaving  him 
eight  children,  of  whom  the  eldest  son,  John,  was 
in  1801  but  fourteen  years  old;  and  he  had  mar 
ried  a  second  wife,  a  widow  Kettell,  the  sister  of 
a  Charlestown  merchant,  Joseph  Hurd,  who  long 
survived  her  husband,  and  had  the  care  of  his 
minor  children.  She  was  also  related  to  Dr.  Kurd, 

[29] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

of  Concord,  a  respectable  physician,  who  had 
married  the  mother  of  Mary  Wilder  at  Lancaster, 
and  brought  her  to  reside  with  her  lovely  daugh 
ter,  in  the  oldest  house  in  the  village,  which  had 
been  the  parsonage  of  Rev.  Daniel  Bliss,  the 
great-grandfather  of  the  Emerson  brothers,  and 
the  grandfather  of  Mary  Moody  Emerson.  The 
estate  of  the  elder  Thoreau  had  been  consider 
able  for  those  early  days  of  the  Republic,  when 
$100,000  (the  estate  of  the  widow  Custis,  when 
Colonel  Washington  married  her)  was  esteemed 
great  riches  in  Virginia.  John  Thoreau  left  about 
$25,000,  including  his  two  houses,  in  Boston  and  in 
Concord,  and  some  $12,000  in  cash  or  good  securi 
ties.  But  his  eight  children  were  to  be  supported 
and  educated,  and  the  times  soon  became  "hard" 
in  consequence  of  the  long  war  between  England 
and  France,  and  the  consequent  embargoes  and 
spoliations  afflicting  New  England  commerce. 

By  will  John  Thoreau  left  to  his  second  wife, 
Rebecca  Thoreau,  the  use  of  the  Concord  house 
and  furniture,  with  $3702  in  money  at  interest; 
and  made  her  brother,  Joseph  Kurd,  executor  of 
the  will,  who  soon  became  guardian  of  the  eight 
children.  An  examination  of  his  guardian's  ac 
count,  which  I  have  made,  shows  what  became  of 
the  property  of  these  orphans.  Mr.  Hurd  re- 

[30] 


BOYHOOD   AND   YOUTH 

ceived  $200  a  year  for  his  care  of  the  property. 
His  sister,  the  widow  Thoreau,  received  not  less 
than  $850  a  year  for  the  board,  clothing,  etc.,  of 
the  eight;  of  whom  two,  Mary  and  Nancy,  died 
before  coming  of  age  and  a  third,  David  Thoreau, 
before  he  had  any  occupation.  The  fees  of  lawyers, 
clerks,  sheriffs,  etc.,  consumed  from  $50  to  $100  a 
year  besides.  The  widow  Thoreau  died  in  1814, 
and  Mr.  Hurd  became  her  administrator.  Her 
own  private  estate  had  been  encumbered  in  the 
care  of  her  stepchildren,  and  out  of  $2903  of  her 
personal  property,  Mr.  Hurd  paid  himself  $1488 
for  money  lent  and  interest  thereon.  He  added 
$1032  for  expenses  of  settlement  and  sale  (of 
furniture,  etc.,  partly  to  himself) ;  and  this  left  but 
$445  to  pay  the  legacies  of  $600  which  she  had 
left  —  $100  to  Dr.  Ripley,  her  minister,  and  $100 
each  to  her  five  brothers  and  sisters.  Her  estate 
was  not  finally  settled  till  1819,  and  then  the  lega 
tees  had  to  accept  but  $71  each,  in  lieu  of  the  round 
hundred.  One  cause  of  the  delay  was  that  young 
John  Thoreau  had  borrowed  of  his  stepmother, 
on  a  mortgage  of  the  paternal  house  in  Boston, 
$1500  to  set  himself  up  in  business  as  a  merchant; 
had  been  unsuccessful,  and  delayed  repayment. 
(The  mortgage  was  of  1808  for  $1000,  but  not 
recorded  till  1811.) 

[31  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Mr.  Kurd's  account  as  guardian  was  not  settled 
till  1815,  when  there  remained  but  six  of  the  eight 
orphans  in  life.  Two  of  these  had  married  —  John, 
and  Elizabeth  (who  wedded  and  settled  in  Maine), 
while  John  afterwards  lived  for  short  times  in 
Chelmsford  and  in  Boston,  but  returned  to  Con 
cord,  where  all  his  children  were  born.  It  does 
not  appear  that  the  thrifty  Mr.  Hurd  lost  any 
thing  by  his  management  of  the  two  estates; 
perhaps  their  diminution  was  unavoidable;  but 
the  result  was  to  leave  five  orphans  well  educated 
but  poor  and  frugal.  They  kept  what  they  inher 
ited  and  earned,  and  at  the  death  of  the  last  sur 
vivor,  Maria  Thoreau,  in  1881,  a  hundred  years 
after  the  marriage  of  her  mother,  Jane  Burns,  the 
united  estates  of  herself  and  her  niece  Sophia, 
dead  five  years  earlier,  were  just  about  equal  to 
the  $25,000  that  John  Thoreau  had  bequeathed. 

His  son  John  had  learned  the  family  trade  of 
merchandising  from  Deacon  John  White  in  Con 
cord,  his  nearest  neighbor  in  the  village  square, 
and  had  commenced  as  a  merchant  in  Concord. 
The  daughter  of  Mrs.  Captain  Minot,  Cynthia 
Dunbar,  was  living  with  her  mother  on  the  Minot 
farm,  Virginia  Road,  where  afterwards  her  son 
Henry  was  born,  and  she  was  there  wooed  by  the 
young  merchant,  and  followed  his  sinking  for- 

[32] 


^ .-' " 


BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

tunes  with  cheerful  courage.  They  remained  in 
Concord  till  late  in  1818,  when  they  removed  to 
Chelmsford,  ten  miles  away,  where  John  Thoreau 
sold  groceries  and  liquor.  While  I  lived  in  the  Old 
Manse,  or  in  the  house  of  Mrs.  Simmons  near 
by,  1865-66,  I  was  allowed  by  the  Ripley  family 
to  examine  the  papers  of  Dr.  Ezra  Ripley,  which 
he  had  carefully  preserved,  and  which  I  found  in 
a  dusty  attic,  near  the  "Prophets'  Chamber" 
which  the  youthful  Emersons  had  occupied  when 
visiting  their  grandmother.  There  I  discovered 
amid  a  mass  of  letters  and  manuscripts,  inscrip 
tions  for  tombstones,  appointments  for  parish 
meetings,  etc.,  a  pious  meditation  of  1818,  on  the 
back  of  which  Dr.  Ripley  had  written,  at  the  re 
quest  of  his  former  parishioner,  Henry  Thoreau's 
father,  this  certificate:  - — 

Understanding  that  Mr.  John  Thoreau,  now  of 
Chelmsford,  is  going  into  business  at  that  place,  and 
is  about  to  apply  for  license  to  retail  ardent  spirits,  I 
hereby  certify  that  I  have  been  long  acquainted  with 
him,  that  he  has  sustained  a  good  character,  and  now 
view  him  as  a  man  of  integrity,  accustomed  to  store- 
keeping,  and  of  correct  morals. 

There  was  no  singularity  in  a  merchant  of  any 
village  at  that  date  vending  or  giving  away  the 
liquors  now  so  much  under  legal  ban.  Every  store- 

[33] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

keeper  did  it,  and  Deacon  White  had  accustomed 
his  apprentice  Thoreau  to  serve  it  to  his  custom 
ers  in  the  village.  Colonel  Whiting,  one  of  my 
friends  in  Concord  so  long  as  he  lived  (he  died 
in  1862)  and  in  whose  house  I  took  refuge  when 
the  United  States  Senate  ordered  my  arrest  in 
February,  1862,  for  refusing  to  appear  before  them 
as  a  witness,  told  me  that  in  his  youth  at  Con 
cord,  early  in  the  nineteenth  century,  there  were 
five  "stores"  and  three  taverns  in  the  village, 
then  containing  one  thousand  inhabitants  only, 
in  which  liquors  (usually  New  England  rum)  were 
sold  by  the  glass  to  any  and  everybody.  It  was 
the  habit,  too,  when  a  customer  bought  so  much 
as  a  half-dollar's  worth  of  goods,  to  offer  him  a 
glass  of  liquor,  which  was  generally  accepted. 
John  Thoreau,  Jr.,  had  become  of  age  late  in 
1808,  had  borrowed  money  of  his  stepmother,  and 
had  begun  as  a  merchant  at  Concord  in  1809.  He 
then  took  his  father's  last  Boston  daybook,  for 
merchandise  sold  in  Boston  (dated  in  1797),  cut 
out  the  Boston  entries,  put  in  his  own  Concord 
entries  of  1809  and  later,  and  used  the  rest  of  the 
book  for  his  Chelmsford  sales,  from  November 
15,  1818,  to  March  21,  1821,  the  date  of  his  re 
moval  to  Boston,  or  just  before. 

Then  the  unprosperous  merchant  removed  to 
[34] 


BOYHOOD   AND   YOUTH 

Boston,  through  Concord,  and  lived  for  two  years 
in  Pinckney  Street.  There  Henry  began  his  school 
instruction,  at  the  age  of  five  (he  was  born  July 
12, 1817) ,  having  been  taught  his  letters  before  that 
by  one  of  his  aunts,  no  doubt.  His  family  returned 
to  Concord  in  1823,  soon  gave  up  trade,  in  which 
there  had  been  so  little  success,  and  took  to  the 
more  profitable  art  of  pencil-making,  which  had 
been  introduced  at  Concord,  in  1812,  by  William 
Monroe,  the  father  of  the  benefactor  of  the  same 
name  who  in  1863  presented  Concord  with  its 
fine  library  building,  and  a  fund  for  its  support  in 
certain  directions. 

At  his  birth,  Henry  had  been  named  David, 
for  his  uncle  David  Thoreau  (himself  named  for 
a  Boston  ancestor,  the  Quaker  seaman  David 
Orrok),  who  had  come  of  age  in  1815,  seven  years 
after  his  brother  John.  David  received  only  $724 
from  his  father's  $25,000  —  not  less  than  $1453 
having  been  expended  on  his  support  and  educa 
tion.  He  died  in  August,  1817,  a  few  weeks  after 
the  birth  of  his  nephew  Henry,  who  was  baptized 
in  October  by  Dr.  Ripley,  under  the  name  of 
David  Henry.  He  remembered  a  few  incidents 
that  occurred  at  the  Minot  farm,  where  he  lived 
for  a  year;  then  for  a  few  months  in  a  red  house 
on  the  Lexington  road,  near  where  the  Emerson 

[35] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

house  was  afterwards  built.  Then  Henry's  father, 
having  been  in  debt  to  his  stepmother's  estate, 
and  unable  to  pay,1  removed  to  Chelmsford,  as 
above  mentioned.  There  he  kept  store  and  prac 
tised  mechanic  arts,  in  which,  like  his  son,  he 
was  skilful,  painting  signs  and  doing  such  things. 
When  he  returned  to  Concord  in  1823,  he  lived 
with  his  sisters  for  some  years  in  the  house  of  his 
father  on  the  square;  but  till  1826  in  the  brick 
house  of  the  late  Josiah  Jones,  at  the  corner  of 
Main  Street  and  the  Walden  Road,  next  to  the 
three-story  wooden  house  of  Deacon  Vose.  Across 
the  street,  but  a  little  westward,  stood  the  man 
sion  of  Dr.  Isaac  Hurd,  who  practised  medicine 
in  Concord  for  fifty-four  years.  It  had  been  suc 
cessively  a  garrison  against  Indians,  parsonage 
house  of  the  town  minister,  and  library  of  Har 
vard  College  in  1775-76.  The  students  then  re 
cited  in  the  parish  church,  and  an  old  lady  whom 
Thoreau  visited  in  after  years,  gave  these  recol 
lections  of  that  troubled  period: — 

1  August  23,  1817,  John  Thoreau  was  adjudged  to  turn  over  to 
J.  Hurd,  executor,  the  Prince  Street  property,  which  was  then 
taken  by  his  sisters. 


[36] 


JOHN  THOREAU 
Father  of  Henry  D.  Thoreau 


BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

Miss  Anna  Jones's  Statement  (November,  1837) 
(Taken  down  by  Henry  Thoreau) 

I  lived  down  in  the  east  part  of  Concord  in  1775, 
two  miles  from  Dr.  Ripley's  Meeting-house.  Professor 
Wigglesworth  (one  of  the  two  professors  of  the  college 
while  in  Concord)  lived  in  part  of  our  house  nine 
months;  he  used  to  go  up  twice  a  week  to  hear  the 
scholars  recite  at  the  Meeting-house. 

I  had  two  brothers  in  the  war,  Stephen  and  Timothy 
Jones,  Stephen  a  Minute  Man.  About  one  o'clock  at 
night,  April  18,  Dr.  Prescott  came  and  told  him  the 
British  were  coming:  he  ran  right  down  the  back 
stairs  and  fired  his  gun,  as  he  had  been  directed.  I 
went  down  too,  and  heard  the  guns  popping  all 
around.  Stephen  went  off  to  join  his  company  under 
Captain  David  Brown.  Mother  "took  on"  very  much 
for  fear  he  would  be  killed.  He  came  back  with  his 
company  about  10  A.M.,  went  down  cellar  and  got  his 
mother's  best  cheese,  tapped  a  barrel  of  cider,  and 
drew  two  pailsful;  so  they  had  something  to  eat  and 
drink.  Brother  Timothy's  captain  was  a  Bedford  man 
(David  Wilson,  a  brother-in-law  of  Thompson  Max 
well,  of  Amherst,  New  Hampshire,  who  took  part  in 
the  fight). 

Rev.  William  Emerson  used  to  preach  to  the  Minute 
Men  in  Concord  and  Acton  twice  a  week;  he  told  them 
"they  had  better  go  without  their  firelock  than  with 
out  their  religion." 

Mr.  Buttrick  the  miller  was  taken  by  the  British; 
they  took  hold  of  him  and  said  they  "would  send  him 

[37] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

to  hell."  But  he  said  he  had  such  a  well-established 
mind  that  he  was  n't  af eared;  they  might  do  as  they 
pleased,  he  could  not  live  long  at  any  rate. 

The  village  in  1823  was  much  what  it  had  been 
when  the  British  arrived  there  at  noon,  April  19, 
1775.  The  schoolhouse,  town-house,  and  church 
were  not  far  from  the  "Milldam,"  where  now  the 
shops  are  —  at  first  a  footway  over  the  dam 
which  made  the  millpond  for  this  nonchalant 
miller;  afterwards  a  street  to  shorten  travel  from 
Boston,  which  was  incessant  by  1823.  A  daily 
stage-coach  ran  through,  from  the  westward  as 
far  as  Keene,  to  Boston,  and  Concord  itself  sup 
plied  a  local  coach  or  wagon  to  take  the  towns 
people  through  Charlestown,  or  over  the  Cam 
bridge  turnpike,  to  the  city;  while  wagons,  chaises, 
and  long  lines  of  market-wagons  went  and  came 
by  the  same  roads.  New  Hampshire  and  Ver 
mont  sent  their  rural  products  to  market  by 
teams  that  "baited"  at  the  three  taverns  as  they 
went  down  to  Boston  with  their  loads,  or  returned 
with  "dry  goods,"  "West  India  goods,"  and  gro 
ceries,  from  that  port  of  entry.  Everything  in 
the  village  bespoke  commerce  and  the  mechanic 
arts,  for  every  kind  of  mechanic  had  his  shop  or 
bench  there.  All  thriving  persons  kept  their  own 
cows  and  hogs,  hens  and  geese;  and  many  rode 


BOYHOOD   AND    YOUTH 

or  drove  their  own  horses  and  yokes  of  oxen.  John 
Thoreau  pastured  his  cow,  like  the  rest,  and  little 
Henry,  barefoot,  was  sent  to  "turn  her  out,"  or 
drive  her  home  at  night  for  milking.  In  the  sum 
mer  and  early  autumn  he  went  barefoot  to  school; 
and  I  had  my  first  glimpse  of  him  climbing  the  hill 
of  science,  when  an  old  lady,  a  cousin  of  the  Emer- 
sons,  and  niece  of  Mary  Moody  Emerson,  told  me, 
with  a  little  start,  how  the  girls'  school  of  Phebe 
Wheeler,  on  one  disturbing  day,  saw  ushered  into 
it,  where  she,  a  member  of  Dr.  Ripley's  household, 
was  studying,  John  and  Henry  Thoreau,  big  bare 
foot  boys.1  They  had  been  sent  by  their  mother, 
the  careful  Cynthia,  to  get  a  little  private  school 
ing,  after  the  town  primary  school  had  closed  for 
the  term. 

No  doubt  both  these  boys  pursued  learning 
eagerly,  and  both  were  ready  pupils  in  what  are 
now  called  "vocational"  studies  —  taught  per 
haps,  by  their  father,  and  stimulated  by  the  ex 
ample  of  other  boys,  with  their  knives  and  bows, 
traps  and  sleds,  and  by  and  by  their  shotguns. 

1  This  schoolgirl,  afterwards  Mrs.  Cleveland,  of  New  York, 
when  leaving  the  Old  Manse  of  her  kinsman,  Dr.  Ripley,  I  suppose 
about  1825,  was  given  some  good  advice,  of  which  she  remembered 
this:  "When  you  must  choose  between  a  duty  and  a  pleasure, 
always  follow  the  path  of  duty  —  something  which  your  Aunt 
Mary  never  does." 

[39] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Years  afterwards  while  at  Walden,  Henry  wrote, 
with  keen  recollections:  — 

In  the  country  a  boy's  love  is  apt  to  be  divided  be 
tween  a  gun  and  a  watch;  but  the  more  active  and 
manly  choose  the  gun.  I  have  seen  the  time  when  I 
could  carry  a  gun  in  my  hand  all  day  long  on  a  journey, 
and  not  feel  it  to  be  heavy,  though  I  did  not  use  it 
once.  The  hunter  has  an  affection  for  his  gun  which 
no  laborer  has  for  the  tool  which  he  uses  —  his  axe  or 
spade.  To-day  the  villager,  whose  way  leads  him 
through  a  piece  of  wood  or  over  a  plain  where  game  is 
sometimes  met  with,  will  deliberate  whether  he  shall 
not  take  his  gun,  because,  as  he  says,  *4he  may  see 
something."  If  the  Indian  and  the  bear  are  gone,  the 
partridge  and  the  rabbit  are  left. 

George  Minot,  Thoreau's  "old  man  of  Verona," 
was  a  famous  shot.  Meeting  his  nearest  neighbor, 
Emerson,  one  day,  going  to  town-meeting,  the 
sage  asked  Minot  if  he  was  not  going  to  vote,  too? 
"N-no,"  drawled  the  old  hunter;  "what  you  do 
with  your  vote  hez  got  to  be  done  over  ag'in; 
what  I  do  with  my  gun  stays  where  't  is;  — 
I'm  goin'  gunninV  In  his  youth,  Thoreau  was 
interested  both  in  gunning  and  voting;  and  there 
is  an  old  letter  of  1838  to  his  brother  John,  in 
the  Indian  lingo  of  Cooper  or  Schoolcraf t,  in  which 
the  town-meeting  and  the  pleasures  of  hunting 

[40] 


/ 

BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

are  mixed  up,  with  some  allusion  also  to  the  ris 
ing  lights  of  Transcendentalism. 

In  his  Life  of  Thoreau,  which,  on  the  whole, 
is  still  the  best  account  of  him,  Ellery  Channing's 
turn  for  recording  queer  trifles  is  indulged.  Its 
first  edition  of  1873  relates  that  at  Chelmsford, 
before  he  was  six  years  old,  "he  was  tossed  by  a 
cow,"  like  Tom  Thumb  in  the  story;  "and  again, 
by  getting  at  an  axe  without  advice,  he  cut  off  a 
part  of  one  of  his  toes.  And  once  he  fell  from  a 
stair,  after  which  last  achievement,  as  after  others, 
he  had  a  singular  suspension  of  breath,  with  a 
purple  hue  in  his  face,  —  owing,  I  think,  to  his 
slow  circulation.  Perhaps  a  more  active  flow  of 
blood  might  have  afforded  him  an  escape  from 
other  and  later  troubles.  I  have  heard  many  such 
stories  from  his  mother  about  these  early  years; 
she  enjoyed  not  only  the  usual  feminine  quantity 
of  speech,  but  thereto  added  the  lavishness  of 
age.  Being  complained  of  for  taking  a  knife  be 
longing  to  another  boy,  Henry  said,  'I  did  not 
take  it,'  and  was  believed.  In  a  few  days  the  cul 
prit  was  found  out.  He  then  said,  'I  knew  all  the 
time  who  it  was.  The  day  it  was  taken  I  went  to 
Newton  with  father.'  'Why  did  you  not  say  so 
at  the  time?'  *I  did  not  take  it'  was  the  reply. 
At  the  earlier  age  of  three,  being  told  that  he  must 

[41  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

die,  like  the  men  in  the  catechism,  he  said,  as  he 
came  in  from  coasting,  that  he  did  not  want  to 
die  and  go  to  Heaven,  if  he  could  not  take  his 
sled  with  him;  the  boys  said  it  was  not  worth  a 
cent,  because  it  was  not  shod  with  iron."  His  ideal 
Indian  of  after  years  had  the  same  weakness:  — 

'  *  And  thinks,  admitted  to  that  equal  sky, 
His  faithful  dog  shall  bear  him  company." 

When  he  was  an  infant,  a  few  of  the  richer 
men  of  the  village,  Squire  Hoar,  Colonel  Whiting, 
Dr.  Hey  wood,  and  others,  gave  a  fund  and  opened 
the  Concord  Academy,  in  which  their  children 
and  others,  whether  boys  or  girls,  could  study 
Latin,  Greek,  and  French.  To  this  school  Henry 
aspired,  and  there  he  was  fitted  for  college  at  the 
age  of  sixteen,  entering  the  Freshman  class  of  1833. 

Honest  poverty,  which  was  the  lot  of  the  Tho- 
reaus  from  1812  to  1828,  was  no  bar  to  respectabil 
ity  in  Concord  then,  and  indeed  was  a  frequent 
result  of  mercantile  ventures.  Tilly  Merrick,  the 
stepson  of  Captain  Duncan  Ingraham,  who  was 
in  1777  the  host  of  Sir  Archibald  Campbell  when 
a  prisoner,  and  became  the  ancestor  of  the  novelist 
Marryat,  had  inherited  a  small  fortune,  and  in 
creased  it  in  trade  at  Charleston,  South  Caro 
lina;  but  lost  some  forty  thousand  dollars  there, 
and  returned  to  Concord  to  be  a  poor  man  the 

[42] 


BOYHOOD   AND    YOUTH 

rest  of  his  life.  But  he  was  sent  to  the  General 
Court  for  years,  and  lived  and  died  respected. 
He  was  the  father  of  Mrs.  Mary  Merrick  Brooks, 
whose  mother  was  akin  to  Captain  Minot,  the 
second  husband  of  Mrs.  Dunbar,  and  who  was 
herself  a  constant  associate  of  the  Thoreaus. 
Colonel  Hurd,  a  son  of  Dr.  Hurd l  and  nephew  of 
Joseph,  the  guardian  of  the  orphan  Thoreaus, 
lost  all  his  property,  involved  his  father  in  his 
debts,  and  was  for  a  while  a  prisoner  for  debt 
in  the  Concord  jail.  These  persons  and  others, 
though  saddened  by  their  losses,  continued  to  be 
members  of  the  Social  Circle  (a  Senate  of  the 
township),  and  their  children  were  as  carefully 
educated  as  those  of  the  wealthy.  The  public 
taxes  paid  for  good  schools;  private  lessons  in  the 
languages  (at  the  Academy  or  elsewhere)  and  in 
music  and  dancing  cost  but  little;  and  good  so 
ciety  was  open  to  all  who  conducted  themselves 
well  —  and  to  some  who  did  not.  John  Thoreau 
was  a  peaceful  and  rather  silent  man;  his  wife  and 
her  sister,  and  his  own  unmarried  sisters,  took 
their  share  in  the  village  politics  and  disputes. 
One  of  the  first  subjects  of  dispute  and  division 

1  Dr.  Hurd's  son,  a  stepson  of  Mary  Wilder,  had  been  a  part 
ner  of  young  John  Thoreau,  and  involved  him  hi  some  debts  be 
fore  1813. 

[43] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

in  the  as  yet  undivided  religious  household  of  the 
town  was  the  Unitarian  controversy,  between 
Calvinists  and  Arminians,  among  the  New  Eng 
land  Congregationalists.  Under  the  stimulus  of 
political  revolutions,  and  exposed  to  the  mild 
sunlight  of  Dr.  Channing's  philanthropic  preach 
ing  in  Boston,  with  other  and  more  learned 
influences  exerted  by  Harvard  Professors  (Ed 
ward  Everett,  Jared  Sparks,  Andrews  Norton, 
Dr.  Ware,  and  Dr.  Palfrey),  the  seeming-solid 
ice  of  Calvinism  had  given  way  in  Massachusetts, 
and  those  once  accepted  doctrines  of  Total  De 
pravity  and  Eternal  Damnation  had  been  re 
jected  by  thousands  of  Christians  and  scores  of 
parishes.  After  enduring  this  in  comparative  quiet 
for  years,  —  though  indulging  in  political  ani 
mosity  against  Jefferson,  who  was  Unitarian, 
and  Madison,  who,  though  an  Anglican,  had  se 
cured  religious  liberty  for  the  Baptists  of  Vir 
ginia,  —  the  Trinitarians  rallied  to  the  contest. 
They  began  to  set  up  dissenting  Congregational 
churches  where  the  pewholders  had  given  the 
control  of  the  old  church  edifices  to  the  heretics. 
Concord,  in  spite  of  its  regard  for  Dr.  Ripley, 
its  sole  pastor  then  for  nearly  forty  years,  began 
to  divide,  and  to  hold  days  of  prayer,  and  Cal- 
vinistic  meetings  on  Sundays. 

r  44 1 


BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

The  sisters  of  John  Thoreau,  then  living  in 
their  father's  house,  joined  this  dissenting  move 
ment,  in  1826-30,  and  became  paying  supporters 
of  an  orthodox  parson  Southmayd,  first,  and  then 
of  Rev.  John  Wilder,  the  grandfather  of  Mrs. 
Mabel  Loomis  Todd,  of  Amherst.  These  mis 
sionaries  preached  to  the  seceding  congregation, 
and  even  drew  away  from  Dr.  Ripley's  church 
his  old  and  familiar  deacon,  White,  the  tithing- 
man,  village  merchant,  and  instructor  of  John 
Thoreau  in  merchandising,  which  the  latter  had 
so  unprofitably  pursued.  We  may  well  fancy  the 
bitter  quarrel  that  soon  arose,  which,  happily,  did 
not  permanently  divide  the  fraternal  and  af 
fectionate  Thoreaus.  John  and  Cynthia  remained 
in  the  congregation  of  Dr.  Ripley,  until  the  period 
of  the  anti-slavery  "come-outers,"  but  Henry 
had  "signed  off"  from  the  First  Parish  soon  after 
leaving  college  in  1837.  He  then  held  opinions 
which  his  good  aunts  on  either  side  (Thoreaus  or 
Dunbars)  scarcely  ventured  to  examine  for  fear 
of  being  shocked;  but  they  must  have  looked  on 
him  as  a  brand  mysteriously  saved  from  the  burn 
ing.  What  induced  these  good  women  to  retain 
their  hold  on  opinions  fast  growing  obsolete,  and 
now  hardly  professed  in  the  same  New  England 
circles,  I  cannot  say.  But  with  regard  to  Henry's 

[45  ] 


HENRY  DAVID   THOREAU 

Aunt  Louisa,  I  have  heard  the  tale  from  her  own 
mouth.  In  her  youth,  being  left,  by  the  early  death 
of  her  father,  to  depend  on  herself,  she  soon  took 
to  teaching  school,  as  the  custom  was;  and  chance 
brought  her  into  that  region,  in  New  Hampshire, 
where  a  brilliant  youth,  a  little  older  than  her 
self,  Daniel  Webster  (soon  to  be  heard  among  the 
orators  and  statesmen  of  the  nation),  was  pre 
paring  himself  for  his  high  career.  In  1805-06,  be 
ing  in  the  same  township  (Boscawen)  with  Miss 
Dunbar,  a  lively  and  pleasing  young  lady  of 
twenty,  bred  in  Keene,  he  would  sometimes  invite 
her  of  an  afternoon  to  drive  out  in  his  chaise;  and 
his  serious  conversation  on  religion  so  affected  her 
mind  that  (as  I  suppose)  she  went  through  an 
orthodox  conversion,  and  joined  Rev.  Mr.  Wood's 
church.  At  any  rate,  she  told  me,  a  few  years 
after  Webster's  death,  while  looking  at  a  good 
engraved  portrait  of  Ames's  Webster,  made  by 
Rowse,  the  crayon  artist,  which  hung  in  the 
Thoreau  dining-room,  "that  she  owed  her  con 
version,  under  Providence,  to  the  serious  im 
pression  made  on  her  conscience  by  Daniel  Web 
ster."  And  from  this  Calvinistic  profession  of 
faith  I  think  she  never  varied. 

Whatever  effect  the  Christian  Church,  with 
its  catechism  and  ceremonies,  may  have  had  on 

[46] 


r 

¥M 


LOUISA  DUNBAR 


BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

Henry's  childish  mind,  I  incline  to  think  that  the 
spectacle  of  Nature,  in  all  her  variable  magnifi 
cence  and  vitality,  was  of  greater  moment.  Next 
to  that,  perhaps,  was  the  interest  and  the  debates 
of  the  newly  established  Concord  Lyceum,  that 
opened  its  doors  when*  Henry  was  twelve  years 
old,  in  January,  1829. 

This  institution,  still  existing,  but  greatly  changed 
from  its  first  aims,  and  now  used  chiefly  for 
popular  entertainment,  was  propagated  all  over 
Massachusetts  ninety  years  ago,  as  a  source  of 
enlightenment,  by  an  enthusiast  named  Josiah 
Holbrook,  who  went  about  giving  gratuitous  lec 
tures  on  geology  and  other  nascent  sciences,  and 
incidentally  urging  the  villagers  to  form  libraries 
and  collections,  and  institute  debating  societies, 
under  the  Greek  name  of  Lyceums.  Concord 
responded  favorably,  as  Salem  did;  and  in  the 
winter  that  saw  General  Jackson  inaugurated 
President,  our  village  inaugurated  its  Lyceum, 
with  Dr.  Ripley  for  president,  and  Lemuel 
Shattuck,  its  future  town  historian,  for  secretary. 
Before  his  death  in  1882,  Waldo  Emerson  had 
given  a  hundred  lectures  in  this  Lyceum,  and 
Thoreau  nearly  twenty  before  1862.  In  its  first 
winter,  Edward  Emerson,  who  had  studied  law 
with  Daniel  Webster,  represented  the  four  Emer- 

[47] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

son  brothers,  in  a  lecture  on  "The  Geography  of 
Asia."  In  Boston  a  similar  but  more  pretentious 
Lyceum  had  Webster  for  its  president,  but  did 
not  continue  much  beyond  1840.  The  Concord 
audiences  met  at  first  in  the  brick  school-room  on 
the  public  square,  near  the  Thoreau  house,  above 
which  was  the  lodge-room  of  the  Freemasons; 
next  held  their  weekly  meetings  in  the  Unitarian 
Church  vestry;  and,  since  1853,  met  in  the  Town 
Hall.  In  its  first  modest  hall,  Charles  Emerson 
gave  his  famous  lecture  on  Socrates,  to  which  Tho 
reau  listened.  Quite  as  instructive  as  the  lectures 
generally  were  the  debates  in  alternate  weeks,  in 
which  the  attentive  youth  took  a  warm  interest, 
and  modelled  their  own  speeches  upon  those 
which  they  heard  from  their  village  oracles. 
While  fitting  for  college  at  the  Academy  (1830 
to  1833),  Thoreau  frequented  these  exercises, 
and  soon  became  a  member  (which  could  be  done 
when  twelve  years  old),  and  was  an  official  for 
several  years  after  graduating  in  1837. 

Before  he  entered  college  he  had  occasion  to 
witness  two  violent  political  disputes,  that  be 
tween  Masonry  and  the  Anti-Masons  over  the 
mysterious  murder  of  Morgan,  a  recanting  Free 
mason,  and  that  between  President  Jackson  and 
three  great  Senators,  Calhoun,  Clay,  and  Web- 

[48] 


BOYHOOD    AND   YOUTH 

ster,  over  the  United  States  Bank  and  the  Nulli 
fication  Act  of  South  Carolina.  On  that,  Webster 
was  on  Jackson's  side;  but  on  the  Bank  question, 
violently  against  the  President.  It  does  not  appear 
that  either  of  these  disputes,  although  they  raged 
violently  for  years,  and  divided  households  and 
churches,  much  affected  Henry  or  John  Thoreau. 
Henry  was  already  training  himself  for  the  pro 
fession  he  early  chose,  that  of  a  writer.  With  his 
vivacity  and  humor,  he  soon  saw  the  ludicrous 
aspect  of  these  political  wrangles;  and  without 
much  ambition  for  public  distinction,  he  jested 
with  both  sides,  or  gravely  pointed  out  serious 
moral  consequences.  A  strain  of  that  drollery 
which  in  his  uncle  Charles  Dunbar  ran  to  excess 
was  early  and  long  manifest  in  Henry  Thoreau. 
Concord  had  a  flourishing  "Corinthian  Lodge" 
of  Masons,  of  which  both  Dr.  Ripley  and  his  son, 
Rev.  Samuel  Ripley,  were  members;  while  Asa 
Dunbar,  as  we  saw,  had  been  an  orator  in  the 
Massachusetts  lodges,  and  the  master  of  a  lodge 
in  Keene  for  some  years.  His  address  at  the  Lan 
caster  lodge  has  been  reprinted  in  recent  years, 
and  is  a  good  sample  of  his  style.  But  the  Thoreaus 
seem  to  have  been  averse  to  Masonry,  and  to  se 
cret  societies  in  general.  The  quarrel  extended 
from  New  York,  where  the  murder  of  Morgan 

[49] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

occurred  in  1826,  to  Vermont,  Massachusetts, 
and  other  States,  and  in  1832  one  State,  Vermont, 
cast  its  vote  for  the  Anti-Masonic  candidate  for 
President,  William  Wirt,  of  Virginia,  a  distin 
guished  orator  and  author.1  In  Massachusetts, 
John  Quincy  Adams  was  the  most  distinguished 
Anti-Mason,  and  his  influence  and  that  of  others 
was  so  great  that  the  "Corinthians"  lost  their 
popularity,  and  held  but  few  meetings  for  the 
dozen  years  between  1832  and  1845.  Their  emi 
nent  members,  Dr.  Ripley  and  his  son,  Lemuel 
Shattuck,  the  historian  of  the  town,  Drs.  Hurd 
and  Nelson,  John  Keyes,  the  postmaster,  Colonel 
Whiting,  Abel  Moore  (Emerson's  "Captain Hardy  ") , 
Wesson,  the  Landlord  of  Thoreau's  early  essay, 
etc.,  united,  in  1831, for  a  defence  of  Freemasonry, 
which  had  wide  circulation,  but  did  not  make 
the  lodge  popular  in  Concord.  Its  "History"  pub 
lished  in  1859  by  Louis  Surette,  and  jocosely 
known  as  "The  Third  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians," 
is  a  valuable  biographical  work  for  local  histo 
rians,  and  includes  a  very  curious  full-length  por 
trait  of  Dr.  Ripley,  one  of  its  earliest  members.  In 
its  pages  I  made  my  first  appearance  as  a  biog 
rapher,  furnishing  short  sketches  of  the  two 

1  The.  first  successes  of  Governor  Seward  and  Thurlow  Weed  in 
New  York  were  won  as  Anti-Masons.  I  was  never  a  Mason. 

[50] 


BOYHOOD   AND    YOUTH 

clerical  Ripleys,  from  papers  at  the  Old  Manse 
and  in  Emerson's  library. 

Thoreau  had  various  missions  in  this  world, 
some  of  which  he  fulfilled,  and  passed  beyond 
them;  others  he  did  not  live  long  enough  to  com 
plete,  and  only  approached  perfection  at  remote 
intervals.  Versifying  was  one  of  these  latter; 
though  the  poetic  perception  and  ideal  nature 
were  his  in  a  marked  degree.  But  his  prose  style 
was  not  only  brought  to  a  high  point  of  excellence 
in  his  last  twenty  years,  but  he  exhibited  in  youth 
an  early  capacity  for  good  writing,  which  his  de 
votion  to  the  art  developed  into  what  may  easily 
pass  for  perfection  in  his  best  passages.  As  I  was 
fourteen  years  younger  than  Thoreau,  and  only 
knew  him  in  his  last  seven  years,  though  inti 
mately  for  that  length  of  time,  I  never  saw  his 
boyish  compositions.  But  the  affectionate  re 
search  of  Alfred  Hosmer  rescued  from  oblivion, 
and  a  more  distant  disciple,  Mr.  Hill,  of  Arizona, 
has  lately  printed,  a  faultless  specimen  of  his  com 
position  at  about  the  age  of  ten,  while  he  was  still 
known  by  the  family  title  of  "David  Henry."  It  is 

The  Seasons 
Why  do  the  seasons  change?  and  why 

Does  Winter's  stormy  brow  appear? 
Is  it  the  word  of  Him  on  high 

Who  rules  the  changing,  varied  year? 

[51  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

There  are  four  Seasons  in  a  year,  Spring,  Summer, 
Autumn,  and  Winter.  I  will  begin  with  Spring.  Now 
we  see  the  ice  beginning  to  thaw,  and  the  trees  to  bud. 
Now  the  winter  wears  away,  and  the  ground  begins  to 
look  green  with  the  new-born  grass.  The  birds,  which 
have  lately  been  to  more  southern  countries,  return 
again  to  cheer  us  with  their  morning  song. 

Next  comes  Summer.  Now  we  see  a  beautiful  sight. 
The  trees  and  flowers  are  in  bloom.  Now  is  the  pleas- 
antest  part  of  the  year.  Now  the  fruit  begins  to  form 
on  the  trees,  and  all  things  look  beautiful. 

In  Autumn  we  see  the  trees  loaded  with  fruit.  Now 
the  farmers  begin  to  lay  in  their  Winter's  store,  and 
the  markets  abound  with  fruit.  The  trees  are  partly 
stripped  of  their  leaves.  The  birds  which  visited  us  in 
Spring  are  now  retiring  to  warmer  countries,  as  they 
know  that  Winter  is  coming. 

Next  comes  Winter.  Now  we  see  the  ground  covered 
with  snow,  and  the  trees  are  bare.  The  cold  is  so  in 
tense  that  the  rivers  and  brooks  are  frozen. 

There  is  nothing  to  be  seen.  We  have  no  birds  to 
cheer  us  with  their  morning  song.  We  hear  only  the 
sound  of  the  sleigh  bells. 

Here  is  selection  of  topics  and  simplicity  of  style 
which  the  Master  of  Sentences  could  not  surpass. 
He  could  infuse  more  imagination,  and  display 
more  energy;  but  the  child  here  is  father  of  the 
man;  or,  rather,  here  is  the  perennial  boy.  As 
Channing  wrote:  "Never  eager,  with  a  pensive 

[521 


BOYHOOD    AND    YOUTH 

hesitancy  he  steps  about  his  native  fields,  singing 
the  praises  of  music  and  Spring  and  Morning, 
forgetful  of  himself";  adding,  "He  was  one  of 
those  who  keep  so  much  of  the  boy  in  him,  that 
he  could  never  pass  a  berry  without  picking  it." 


CHAPTER  III 

COLLEGE  ESSAYS  OF  A  YOUTH  OF  GENIUS 

DAVID  HENRY  THOREAU  entered  Harvard  Col 
lege  in  1833  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  at  that  time 
rather  above  the  average  age  of  entrance.  Ed 
ward  Everett  had  graduated  at  about  that  age, 
and  had  written  many  essays  before  graduating. 
Thoreau  was  not  required  to  write  English  essays 
in  his  Freshman  year;  and,  with  the  exception  of 
the  brief  "composition"  on  "The  Seasons,"  al 
ready  printed,  there  are  no  extant  letters,  or 
essays  of  his,  earlier  than  those  soon  to  be  given/ 
Presumably  he  had  written  short  essays  at  school, 
had  composed  translations,  and  had  indited  and 
sent  letters;  but  no  such  seem  to  have  been 
preserved.  We  might  ask  why  these  particular 
manuscripts  were  saved  when  others  went  to  the 
fireplace  in  the  years  when  the  use  of  flint  and  steel 
and  the  tinder-box  for  kindling  winter  fires  required 
the  aid  of  dry  paper;  still  more  when  the  hard 
wood  coals,  covered  up  with  ashes,  furnished  the 
seeds  of  fire  in  the  December  morning,  or  at  the 
outdoor  blaze  which  the  priming  of  the  flintlock 
musket,  or  the  cherished  sparks  of  the  tobacco 

[54] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

pipe,  kindled  in  woodland  or  pasture,  for  the  ram 
bling  or  wood-chopping  boy.  The  most  likely 
answer  is  that  aunt  or  sister  had  cherished  them, 
and  taught  the  youth  to  keep  them,  until,  as  with 
the  later  manuscripts,  they  were  kept  till  there 
seemed  to  be  no  further  use  for  them.  Thoreau 
never  appears  to  have  begrudged  the  labor  of 
copying  and  revising;  seldom  have  I  known  an 
author  who  made  more  drafts  of  what  he  might 
some  time  print,  or  more  persistently  revised  what 
he  had  once  composed.  The  Journal  entries, 
which  may  have  begun  as  early  as  1835,  com 
monly  went  through  three  forms,  —  the  first 
notes,  hastily  jotted  down  on  a  walk  or  a  sail, 
'then  the  full  copy  written  out  at  leisure,  and, 
third,  the  copying  into  a  volume,  to  be  afterwards 
broken  up  and  destroyed,  when  its  chief  contents 
had  gone  to  be  printed  or  had  been  put  into  fin 
ished  essays,  like  the  " Service"  of  1840.  He  em 
ployed  no  amanuensis  so  long  as  his  fingers  could 
hold  the  pen;  then  for  a  few  months  his  sister  So 
phia  wrote  a  few  letters,  and  possibly  some  pages 
for  the  magazines  in  which  his  rare  contributions 
appeared.  I  have  found  a  meditative  description 
(evidently  influenced  by  Irving)  as  early  as  1835, 
and  it  is  possible  that  the  ballad  "Godfrey  of 
Boulogne,"  soon  to  be  given,  dates  as  far  back  as 

[55] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

that.    But  of  the  date  of  the  college  essays,  we 
can  be  reasonably  sure. 

The  earliest  dated  letter  from  Thoreau  yet 
found  was  written  to  a  classmate  in  college,  Henry 
Vose,  of  a  family  resident  in  Concord,  though  not 
himself  then  living  there,  but  in  Dorchester; 
otherwise  the  two  Seniors  would  have  met  and 
arranged  colloquially  for  rooming  together.  He 
was  afterwards  Judge  Vose,  and  outlived  Thoreau 
by  seven  years,  dying  in  1869. 

CONCORD,  July  5,  1836. 

DEAR  VOSE:  —  You  will  probably  recognize  in  the 
following  dialogue  a  part  which  you  yourself  acted. 

ACT  I.  Scene  1st. 

T.  Come,  Vose,  let's  hear  from  a  fellow  now  and 
then. 

V.  We-11, 1  certainly  will,  but  you  must  write  first. 

T.  No,  confound  you,  —  I  shall  have  my  hands 
full,  and,  moreover,  shall  have  nothing  to  say;  while 
you  will  have  bonfires,  gunpowder  plots,  and  deviltry 
enough  to  back  you. 

V.  Well,  I'll  write  first;  and  in  the  course  of  our 
correspondence  we  can  settle  a  certain  other  matter. 

Now  't  is  to  this  "certain  other  matter"  alone  that 
you  are  indebted  for  this  epistle. 

The  length  and  breadth,  the  height  and  depth,  the 
sum  and  substance  of  what  I  have  to  say  is  this :  — 

Your  humble  servant  will  endeavor  to  enter  the 
\  56  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

Senior  Class  of  Harvard  University  next  term;  and  if 
you  intend  taking  a  room  in  College,  and  it  should  be 
consistent  with  your  pleasure,  will  joyfully  sign  him 
self  your  lawful  and  proper  "chum." 

Should  the  case  be  otherwise,  you  will  oblige  him 
much  if  you  will  request  that  sage  doughface  of  a 
Wheeler  to  secure  me  one  of  the  following  rooms, 
agreeably  to  his  polite  offer. 

H.  D3  [Hoi worthy]. 

St.  do  [StoughtonJ. 

H.  27.  St.  do. 

St.  28.  H.  do. 

Look  well  to  the  order.  I  shall  expect  to  hear 
from  you  forthwith.  I  leave  it  to  you  to  obtain  a 
room,  should  it  be  necessary. 

Yrs.  Matter-of-fact 

D.  H.  THOREAU 

There  is  nothing  very  noticeable  about  this 
letter,  except  that  it  implies  a  youthful  convers 
able  spirit,  such  as  a  collegian  approaching  nine 
teen  ought  to  have. 

Nor  was  he  averse  to  the  usual  rebellious  gaye- 
ties  of  college  life,  as  may  be  inferred  from  a  letter 
sent  to  him  five  weeks  before,  while  he  was  at 
home  and  in  poor  health,  by  his  classmate  Pea- 
body,  reciting  the  pranks  of  the  Davy  club,  a 
chemical  society,  when  fireworks  were  exhibited 
by  Henry  Williams,  and  were  reported  to  the 

[  57  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Faculty  by  Tutor  Bowen,  thus  securing  a  small 
punishment  (public  admonition)  from  President 
Quincy  for  Henry  Bigelow,  afterwards  a  cele 
brated  surgeon,  and  Williams.  The  chemical 
professor  at  that  time  was  J.  W.  Webster,  who 
was  executed  some  years  after  for  the  murder  of 
Dr.  Parkman. 

That  Thoreau  was  ever  thus  admonished,  or 
came  under  direct  college  censure,  nowhere  ap 
pears,  but  his  independent  spirit  seems  to  have 
been  recognized  before  this  date.  When  his 
townsman,  Emerson,  in  June,  1837,  wrote  to 
Quincy  urging  some  lenity  toward  so  good  a 
scholar  and  so  wide  a  reader,  the  good-natured 
old  President  replied  (June  23,  1837):— 

I  was  willing  and  desirous  that  whatever  f alling-off 
there  had  been  in  his  scholarship  should  be  attributable 
to  his  sickness.  He  had,  however,  imbibed  some  no 
tions  concerning  emulation  and  college  rank,  which 
had  a  natural  tendency  to  diminish  his  zeal,  if  not  his 
exertions.  There  is  no  doubt  that,  from  some  cause, 
an  unfavorable  opinion  has  been  entertained,  since  his 
return  after  his  sickness,  of  his  disposition  to  exert 
himself. 

His  illness  must  have  been  rather  serious,  from 
the  account  he  gave  of  himself  to  another  class 
mate,  Charles  Wyatt  Rice,  in  his  next  letter, 

[58] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

a  month  later  than  that  just  quoted,  which 
likewise  throws  light  on  his  early  river-sailing, 
his  poetic  readings,  and  the  turn  of  his  quaint 
humor  at  nineteen:  — 

CONCORD,  Augiist  5, 1836. 
FRIEND  RICE:  — 

You  say  you  are  in  the  hay-field:  how  I  envy  you! 
Methinks  I  see  thee  stretched  at  thy  ease  by  the  side 
of  a  fragrant  rick,  with  mighty  flagon  in  one  hand,  a 
cold  slice  in  the  other,  and  a  most  ravenous  appetite 
to  boot.  So  much  for  haying. 

Now  I  cannot  hay,  nor  scratch  dirt;  I  manage  to 
keep  body  and  soul  together  another  way.  I  have  been 
manufacturing  a  sort  of  vessel  in  miniature;  not  an 
eva-€\fjLov  veav,  as  Homer  has  it  [a  well-benched  ship], 
but  a  kind  of  oblong  bread-trough. 

In  times  of  yore,  't  is  said,  the  swimming  Alder, 
Fashioned  rude,  with  branches  lopt,  and  stript 
Of  its  smooth  coat,  — 

Where  fallen  tree  was  not,  and  rippling  stream's 
Vast  breadth  forbade  adventurous  leap, 
The  brawny  swain  did  bear  secure  to  farthest  shore. 

The  Book  has  passed  away, 
And  with  the  book  the  lay, 
Which  in  my  youthful  days  I  loved  to  ponder; 
Of  curious  things  it  told, 
How  wise  Men  Three  of  old,  (Gotham) 

In  bowl  did  venture  out  to  sea,  — 
And  darkly  hints  their  future  fate. 

If  men  have  dared  the  Main  to  tempt 
In  such  frail  bark,  why  may  not  washtub  round, 
Or  bread-trough  square?  oblong?  —  suffice  to  cross 
The  purling  wave?  and  gain  the  destined  port. 

[59] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

When  I  begin  to  feel  "bluey"  I  just  step  into  my 
hog-trough,  leave  care  behind,  and  drift  along  our 
sluggish  stream,  at  the  mercy  of  the  winds  and 
waves. 

The  following  is  the  log-book  of  the  Red  Jacket, 
Captain  Thoreau. 

Set  sail  from  the  Island,  —  the  Island,  —  how  ex 
pressive!  Reached  Thayer's  after  a  tedious  voyage, 
having  encountered  a  head-wind  during  the  whole  pas 
sage;  waves  running  mountain  high,  with  breakers  to 
leeward.  However,  arrived  safe,  and,  after  a  thorough 
outfit,  being  provided  with  extra  cables  and  a  first-rate 
birch  mainmast,  —  weighed  anchor  at  3  P.M.  August  1, 
1836,  N.N.E.  wind  blowing.  The  breeze  having  in 
creased  to  a  gale,  tacked  ship  and  prepared  for  emer 
gencies.  Just  as  the  ship  was  rounding  to  Point  Den 
nis,  a  squall  struck  her  under  a  cloud  of  canvas,  which 
swept  the  deck.  The  aforesaid  mast  went  by  the 
board,  carrying  with  it  the  only  mainsail.  The  vessel, 
being  left  at  the  mercy  of  the  waves,  was  cast  ashore  on 
Nashawtuck  Beach.  The  natives,  a  harmless,  inoffen 
sive  race,  principally  devoted  to  agricultural  pursuits, 
appeared  somewhat  astonished  that  a  stranger  should 
land  so  unceremoniously  on  their  coast.  Got  her  off 
at  20  minutes  of  4;  and  after  a  pleasant  passage  of 
ten  minutes,  arrived  safely  in  port,  with  a  valuable 
cargo. 

The  short  voyage,  here  magniloquently  de 
scribed,  was  up  the  Sudbury  River,  toward  the 
south,  and  back  again  to  some  moorings  on  the 

[  601 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

Lowell  road,  where,  some  eighteen  years  before, 
a  young  clockmaker's  apprentice  named  Dyar 
had  set  up  the  first  electric  telegraph  ever  seen  in 
operation,  for  a  few  rods  along  that  causeway, 
from  Concord  Village.  For  in  1836  the  Thoreaus 
were  living  in  their  own  Thoreau  house,  near  and 
opposite  to  the  present  Court  House  in  Concord. 
The  boat  was  probably  the  second  that  Henry  and 
John  had  built.  The  first  was  called  "The  Rover  " ; 
the  name  of  this  "bread-tray"  or  "hog-trough" 
is  given  as  "Red  Jacket"  above. 

In  this  singular  epistle  I  have  ventured  to 
restore  the  rhythmical  passage  into  what  may 
have  been  its  original  form.  The  first  verses  are 
evidently  a  rendering  of  some  Latin  poet,  probably 
Ovid,  intimating  how  the  European  alder,  large 
enough  for  a  canoe,  was  turned  into  one,  where 
the  stream  by  which  it  grew  was  too  large  to  be 
jumped,  or  too  wide  to  be  swum  across.  The  sec 
ond  stanza  is  original,  satirizing  his  own  attempts 
to  build  a  boat  for  his  river  voyaging,  in  which 
with  the  aid  of  his  brother  John,  he  succeeded  in 
1836. 1  It  is  plain  that  David  Henry,  the  Junior 

1  This  letter  was  in  the  collection  of  Alfred  Hosmer  at  Concord, 
and  has  lately  been  printed  by  E.  B.  Hill,  of  Mesa,  Arizona.  As  to 
the  boat,  Henry  indicates  it  was  a  short,  oblong  scow,  in  which  a 
mast  and  sail  might  be  set  up,  as  in  the  boats  he  and  John  after 
wards  navigated  on  the  two  rivers. 

[61  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Sophister,  had  been  seriously  ill,  or  was  recovering 
from  some  severe  illness  to  which,  the  next  year, 
President  Quincy  made  allusion  in  writing  to  Em 
erson.  The  rest  of  the  epistle  (long  for  Thoreau 
in  those  youthful  years)  is  more  like  the  ordinary 
letters  of  collegians  in  vacation.  The  part  about 
river  sailing  is  boyish,  but  original,  and  quaintly 
forecasting. 

"Epistolary  matter,"  says  Lamb,  "usually  com 
prises  three  topics,  —  news,  sentiments,  and 
Now,  as  to  news,  I  don't  know  the  coin;  the  newspa 
pers  take  care  of  that.  Puns  I  abhor,  and  more  es 
pecially  deliberate  ones.  Sentiment  alone  is  immortal; 
the  rest  are  short-lived,  evanescent.  This  letter  is 
neither  matter-of-fact,  nor  pungent,  nor  yet  senti 
mental;  it  is  neither  one  thing  nor  another;  but  a  kind 
of  hodge-podge,  —  put  together  in  much  the  same 
style  that  mince  pies  are  fabled  to  have  been  made, 
i.e.,  by  opening  the  oven  door,  and  from  the  further 
end  of  the  room  casting  in  the  various  ingredients;  a 
little  lard  here,  a  little  flour  there,  —  now  a  round  of 
beef,  and  then  a  cargo  of  spices,  helter  skelter. 

I  should  like  to  crawl  into  those  holes  you  describe; 
what  a  crowd  of  associations  'twould  give  rise  to! 
"One  to  once,  gentlemen." 

As  to  Indian  remains,  the  season  is  past  with  me;  the 
Doctor  having  expressly  forbidden  both  digging  and 
chopping.  My  health  is  so  much  improved  that  I  shall 
return  to  Cambridge  next  term,  if  they  will  receive  me. 

[62] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

French  I  have  certainly  neglected;  Dan  Homer  is  all 
the  rage  at  present. 

This  from  your  friend  and  classmate, 

D.  H.  THOREAU. 

P.S.  It  would  afford  me  much  pleasure  if  you  would 
visit  our  good  old  town  this  vacation;  in  other  words, 
myself. 

Don't  fail  to  answer  this  forthwith;  't  is  a  good  thing 
to  persevere  in  well-doing. 

How  true  it  is  that  the  postscript  contains  the  most 
important  matter,  invariably. 

The  style  of  this  sprightly  letter  may  be  com 
pared  with  the  more  serious  and  formal  manner 
of  his  college  essays  of  this  year  1836.  He  con 
fines  himself  here  to  no  one  or  even  six  subjects; 
but  ranges  over  a  broad  field,  with  but  little  con 
nection  among  his  topics.  The  same  disconnection 
appears  in  his  Journals,  where  he  passes  from  one 
topic  to  another,  connected  by  no  visible  thread 
of  association.  This  was  perhaps  from  an  unwill 
ingness  wilfully  to  change  the  flow  of  his  rap 
idly  moving  thoughts.  Emerson  had  that  fancy, 
which  may  have  suggested  this  practice  to  Tho- 
reau.  The  story  of  the  voyage  —  a  very  real  one, 
I  am  sure  —  is  well  told,  but  not  the  secret  of 
manufacturing  the  rude  boat.  I  have  seen  such 
on  the  river-banks  now  and  then,  for  the  use  of 
boys  and  gunners,  or  for  river  fishing,  of  which 

[63J 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

there  was  more  when  the  population  of  the  town 
was  smaller  than  it  is  now.  The  boat  built  by 
John  and  himself  two  years  later  was  a  much 
larger  and  more  elaborate  affair,  intended  for 
several  passengers,  and  adapted  to  the  use  of 
ladies.  In  becoming  the  property  of  Hawthorne, 
Mrs.  Hawthorne  gave  it  the  sentimental  name 
of  "Pond-Lily."  His  later  boat  could  more  prop 
erly  be  called  the  "Cow-Lily"  from  its  ruder 
form  and  heavier  build;  in  it  he  carried  loads  of 
wood  and  other  useful  articles.  It  was  usually 
paddled,  yet  sailed  well,  with  its  one  sail.  A 
little  before  this  date  the  family  had  lived  at  the 
corner  of  Academy  Lane  and  Main  Street,  where 
Thoreau  kept  hens. 

Going  back  now  from  this  letter,  written  during 
illness,  to  a  year  earlier,  the  calendar  year  1835, 
when  he  had  been  in  college  some  seventeen 
months,  and  had  passed  the  first  half  of  his  eight 
eenth  year;  he  was  still  called  seventeen,  and 
rated  in  college  as  a  Sophomore.  His  first  college 
essays  are  short,  as  Sophomore  essays  at  Harvard 
were  wont  to  be;  then  they  grew  longer,  but  are 
never  tedious  from  their  length;  rather  we  should 
have  wished  the  writer  to  develop  his  clear 
thought  a  little  further.  The  first  thing  we  notice 
in  this  first  of  the  preserved  essays  is  the  strag- 

[64] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

gling  and  unsteady  handwriting.  This  village 
youth  at  seventeen  had  not  quite  formed  a  firm 
and  consistent  chirography,  though  he  had  ac 
quired  a  firm  and  significant  character,  and  a  note 
worthy  command  of  words  in  then*  delicate  shades 
of  meaning.  His  character  needs  chiefly  the  broad 
ening  which  experience  gives,  and  his  language  is 
to  be  guarded  against  the  misguidance  of  an  ac 
tive  and  jocose  fancy.  At  need,  he  can  superscribe 
his  "H.  D.  Thoreau"  rather  handsomely;  but  in 
current  writing  the  letters  falter  and  stagger  too 
much.  His  ink  is  good  and  black  —  probably 
made  on  some  domestic  recipe,  by  his  father  or 
himself,  as  the  custom  then  was  in  the  country. 
This  first  essay  touches  without  delay  on  that 
human  trait  which  Thoreau  always  regarded 
with  distrust,  verging  on  disgust  —  hesitation 
and  imitation  culminating  in  irresolution.  His 
text,  chosen,  no  doubt,  by  Professor  Edward 
Channing,  uncle  of  his  future  friend,  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  —  who  had  already  entered  and  left  college, 
never  to  return, — runs  thus:  "We  are  apt  to 
become  what  others  (however  erroneously)  think 
us  to  be:  hence  another  motive  to  guard  against 
the  power  of  others'  [sic]  opinion." 

We  may  call  the  subject  of  the  essay,  without 
straining  a  point,  — 

165] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

7.  Following  the  Fashion 

We  find,  on  looking  around  us,  even  within  the  small 
circle  of  our  acquaintances,  many  who,  though  not  at 
all  deficient  in  understanding,  cannot  muster  resolution 
enough  to  commence  any  undertaking,  even  the  most 
trifling,  without  consulting  a  friend;  who  are  too  diffi 
dent  of  their  ability  to  judge  for  themselves,  and  who, 
eventually,  after  a  certain  degree  of  solicitation,  after 
the  requisite  number  of  arguments  has  been  brought 
forward,  almost  invariably  yield;  though  perhaps  their 
good  sense  tells  them  better.  I  would  not  by  any  means 
have  it  understood  that  we  are  to  neglect  the  advice  of 
our  friends;  and  ask  another's  opinion,  as  many  do, 
merely  to  refute  it,  without  considering  that  it  is  given 
at  our  own  request,  and  that  therefore  we  are  to  con 
sider  it  a  favor:  but  the  majority  of  mankind  are  too 
easily  induced  to  follow  any  course  which  accords  with 
the  opinion  of  the  world.  Nine  out  of  ten  will  tell  you, 
in  answer  to  the  question,  "How  shall  you  act  with 
regard  to  this  matter?"  "I  have  n't  concluded;  what 
do  you  think  best?"  or  something  similar. 

They  seem  to  be  tossed  about  in  the  rapid  current 
of  human  life  at  the  mercy  of  the  waves:  the  voyage 
v  may  be  prosperous,  they  may  eventually  drift  into  a 
calm  and  secure  haven;  but  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
much  more  likely  that  shipwreck  will  overtake  them; 
or,  as  they  are  drifted  along  by  the  foaming  torrent, 
thinking  themselves  secure  from  the  innumerable 
enemies  who  crowd  the  shores  on  either  side,  they  may 
be  dashed  down  the  cataract  which,  while  meditating 

f  66  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

on  which  shore  they  shall  land,  —  to  which  party  they 
shall  surrender,  —  had  escaped  their  notice.  Thus  are 
their  actions  principally  the  result  of  chance,  and  they 
become  mere  tools  in  the  hands  of  others;  since  they 
are  little  qualified  by  nature  to  depend  on  their  own 
strength  and  powers. 

One  principal  cause  of  this  is  a  false  shame  which 
many  feel,  lest  they  be  considered  singular  or  ec 
centric;  and  therefore  they  run  into  the  opposite  ex 
treme, — become  all  things  to  all  men,  and  conform 
to  existing  customs  and  rules,  whether  good  or  bad. 
This  grows  into  a  habit,  and  thus  an  entire  change 
takes  place  in  the  disposition  and  character  of  the 
man. 

On  this  creditable  essay  the  shrewd  Professor 
only  comments  by  asking,  "May  they  not  retain 
their  character?" 

We  notice  in  our  turn  the  felicitous  choice  of 
words,  the  too  great  length  of  the  sentences,  and 
an  occasional  lack  of  what  Professor  Channing 
would  have  called  "perspicuity."  Perspicacity 
is  not  lacking;  and  the  ruling  trait  in  Thoreau's 
singularity  is  thus  early  manifested  —  a  readiness 
to  be  thought  eccentric,  and  not  to  follow  the 
fashion.  But  this  eccentricity  does  not  here  grow 
jocose,  as  in  the  letter  to  Rice  just  quoted;  and 
instead  of  wandering  from  the  subject,  the  es 
sayist  clings  to  it  with  the  rigor  of  a  logician, 

[67] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

rather  than  the  imagination  of  the  symbolist 
and  poet,  —  which  was  his  later  trait. 

Very  early  in  the  Sophomore  essays  comes 
this  brief  one  on  — 

II.  Anxieties  and  Delights  of  a  Discoverer 

"Give  your  idea  of  the  Anxieties  and  Delights  of 
a  Discoverer,  of  whatever  Class,  —  Columbus, 
Herschel,  Newton." 

It  almost  invariably  happens  that  the  lives  of  most 
distinguished  characters  are  chequered  with  trials  and 
disappointments,  and  that  their  eminence  has  been 
attained  by  years  of  toil  and  anxiety.  But  this  seems 
to  be  particularly  the  case  with  the  Discoverer.  With 
him,  all  is  uncertainty;  chance  may  crown  him  with 
the  highest  honors,  and  chance  may  expose  him  to  the 
ridicule  and  contempt  of  his  fellow-men.  Fortune  may 
flatter  him  when  all  hope  has  vanished,  and  desert  him 
when  success  seems  near.  Indeed,  to  the  fall  of  an  apple 
could  Newton  trace  his  famous  discovery  of  the  laws 
of  universal  gravitation. 

Perhaps  one  succeeds  and  makes  a  discovery  which 
shall  immortalize  his  name:  still,  his  work  is  not  fin 
ished,  he  has  the  prejudices  of  the  whole  world  to  com 
bat.  He  is  satisfied  in  his  own  mind,  but  others  are 
yet  to  be  persuaded;  the  burden  of  proof  lies  on  his 
side,  and  many  are  those  who  have  sunk  under  it  — 
who  have  met  with  more  difficulty  in  gaining  prose 
lytes  than  in  establishing  the  fact  to  their  own  satis 
faction. 

[68] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

A  dismal  picture  this.  Of  their  delight  we  may  judge 
by  taking  an  example  —  Columbus,  for  instance.  He 
conceives  a  project  of  sailing  to  the  Indies  by  a  bold 
and  unusual  route;  this  proposal,  promising  to  make 
his  native  shores  the  centre  of  opulence  and  power,  is 
rejected  by  the  Genoese  as  chimerical.  Stung  with 
indignation  and  disappointment,  he  retires  from  his 
own  country,  to  lay  his  scheme  before  the  Court  of 
France,  where  his  reception  is  still  more  mortifying; 
nothing  daunted,  he  presses  onward,  urged  forward 
with  irresistible  ardor. 

Is  France  averse  to  his  project?  England  is  his  next 
resort;  if  one  hill  is  not  lofty  enough  to  afford  him  a 
prospect  of  his  El  Dorado,  he  mounts  another.  In 
fact,  his  whole  soul  is  wrapt  up  in  his  undertaking. 
Neglected  by  Portugal,  Spain  is  his  only  resource;  and 
there,  after  eight  years  of  anxiety  and  toil,  he  succeeds, 
through  the  interest  of  Queen  Isabella,  in  obtaining 
three  small  ships. 

Trials  still  await  him.  An  alteration  of  his  compass 
spreads  terror  through  his  crew:  threatened  with 
mutiny,  he  still  pursues  his  course  at  the  hazard  of  his 
life.  A  glorious  discovery  awaits  him,  the  dazzling 
splendor  of  which  casts  into  the  shade  all  his  previous 
trials  and  difficulties. 

What  must  have  been  his  reflections  on  finding  him 
self  the  discoverer  of  a  New  World?  Did  he  ever 
regret  his  perseverance?  Did  he  ever  repent  of  having 
set  himself  up  as  the  laughing-stock  of  Europe?  Nay, 
—  did  not  rather  a  sense  of  what  he  had  endured  serve 
to  heighten  the  enjoyment  of  his  success? 

[69] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

This  is  truly  spirited,  and  shows  how  recently 
and  carefully  he  had  read  Washington  Irving's 
early  chapters  of  the  Life  of  Columbus,  and 
perhaps  Bancroft's  first  volume  of  United  States 
History.  In  neither  of  those  books  is  it  easy  to 
find  a  finer  passage,  so  concisely  worded. 

III.  An  Essay  on  Variety  of  Energy  in  Men 

"One  of  a  cold  and  of  a  constant  mind, 
Not  quickened  into  ardent  action  soon, 
Nor  prompt  for  petty  enterprise;  yet  bold, 
Fierce  where  need  is,  and  capable  of  all  things." 

"Distinguish  between  this  and  other  Kinds  of  ener 
getic  Character,  and  speak  of  one  or  more  in 
History,  who  answer  to  the  above  Description." 
Energy  is  a  quality  common  to  various  characters, 
which  to  the  eye  of  the  careless  observer  appear  to 
have  no  resemblance.  It  is  as  different  in  its  nature  as 
in  its  effects.  Hence  are  we  so  often  surprised  by  hear 
ing  of  the  decision  of  character,  perseverance  and 
success  of  those  whom  we  always  considered  weak, 
irresolute,  and  totally  unfitted  to  succeed  in  life.  This 
surprise  in  part  arises  from  our  not  having  accustomed 
ourselves  to  behold  this  quality  in  all  its  forms.  Some 
are  easily  excited,  of  a  sanguine  temper,  ready  for 
every  undertaking,  and  for  a  time  wholly  absorbed  in 
the  prosecution  of  their  designs.  They  aim  to  accom 
plish  every  thing  by  the  suddenness  of  their  decisions, 
and  the  rapidity  of  their  movements;  but,  as  some  one 
has  justly  observed,  zeal  and  enthusiasm  are  never 

[70] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

very  accurate  calculators.  Their  energy  is  of  an  incon 
stant  kind;  it  is  not  accompanied  by  calmness  and 
deliberation;  so  that  their  success  if  they  meet  with 
any,  is  not  so  much  the  effect  of  their  own  exertions  as 
the  work  of  chance.  They  are  bold  to  decide,  and 
though  not  easily  overcome  by  obstacles  (for  these 
have  the  effect  of  arousing  them  to  action)  still,  they 
are  too  ready  to  abandon  a  project,  —  not  through 
discouragement,  but  want  of  interest. 

Others,  again,  differ  from  the  former  in  this  respect 
only  —  that  they  are  no  less  constant  and  determined 
in  carrying  through  their  undertakings,  than  hasty  to 
decide.  They  are  resolved  not  to  relinquish  a  design 
once  adopted,  whether  good  or  bad;  and  thus  their 
energy  amounts  to  rashness  or  foolishness  as  the  case 
may  be,  and  they  are  apt  to  employ  it  to  little  or  no 
purpose. 

That  description  of  this  quality  which  Philip  van 
Artevelde  possessed  in  so  high  a  degree,  appears  by  far 
the  most  desirable.  Here  Judgment  is  called  upon  to 
give  her  sanction  or  veto  to  the  course  proposed;  her 
subjects,  armed  with  her  consent,  together  with  that 
of  her  counsellors,  Calmness  and  Caution,  are  pre 
pared  for  every  emergency,  —  they  have  but  one  end 
in  view,  which  is  the  execution  of  her  projects.  Energy 
here  holds  a  subordinate  station;  she  composes  the  bone 
and  muscle  of  the  State,  but  Judgment  and  Delibera 
tion  are  invested  with  the  reins  of  government,  and 
have  the  sole  direction  of  affairs. 

I  know  of  no  more  suitable  examples,  by  which  to 
illustrate  these  two  descriptions,  than  the  characters  of 

[71  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Francis  I.  and  Charles  V.,  who,  rivals  for  a  period  of 
28  years,  each  possessing  uncommon  talents,  —  were 
as  different  in  their  temperaments  as  their  abilities, 
and  the  advantages  they  enjoyed.  The  former  was 
sudden  to  adopt  his  resolutions,  and  ardent  in  carrying 
them  through;  he  exhibited  the  most  daring  courage  in 
forming,  as  well  as  executing  his  plans,  but  was,  how 
ever,  too  apt  to  relinquish  them  through  impatience 
or  disgust.  Charles  was  long  in  coming  to  a  decision, 
and  cool  and  collected  on  every  occasion;  having  once 
adopted  a  design,  no  obstacles  could  turn  him  from  the 
prosecution  of  it. 

Francis,  by  the  rapidity  of  his  motions  and  the  im 
petuosity  of  his  career,  often  baffled  his  rival's  best- 
laid  schemes.  Like  the  mountain  torrent  swollen  by  a 
freshet,  which  in  its  rapid  and  irresistible  course 
sweeps  all  before  it,  he  often  fell  upon  his  enemy  in  a 
defenceless  state,  with  a  shock  so  violent  as  to  drive 
him  from  the  field  at  once;  but  in  a  few  days  this 
mighty  torrent  dwindled  to  a  rippling  brook  which,  not 
being  able  to  reach  the  ocean,  ends  its  course  in  some 
stagnant  pool.  Charles,  on  the  other  hand,  resembled 
a  broad  but  calm  river,  which,  steady  though  rapid  in 
its  progress,  flows  onward  to  the  ocean,  —  disdaining 
to  be  swallowed  up  by  any  inland  sea,  or  to  contribute 
its  portion  to  a  sister  stream.  It  would  doubtless  have 
been  well,  had  Charles  possessed  a  little  of  King  Fran 
cis's  ardor  and  enterprise;  but  as  it  was,  energy  such  as 
his  was  by  far  the  most  effective.  The  French  mon 
arch's  hopes,  however  flattering,  were  rarely  realized; 
however  promising  the  prospect  of  each  affair,  they 

[72] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

were  seldom  attended  by  a  fortunate  issue.  The  Em 
peror,  on  the  other  hand,  in  spite  of  every  obstacle, 
was  generally  successful  in  the  end. 

This  essay  shows  careful  reading  in  the  his 
tories  of  these  two  monarchs,  and  a  fondness  for 
figurative  language  that  is  somewhat  fatiguing. 
The  subject  of  the  next  forbids  such  tropes. 


IV.  Shall  We  Keep  Journals? 

"Of  Keeping  a  private  Journal,  or  Record  of  our 
Thoughts,  Feelings,  Studies  and  daily  Experience, 
— containing  abstracts  of  Books,  and  the  Opinions 
we  formed  of  them  on  first  reading  them." 

As  those  pieces  which  the  painter  sketches  for  his 
own  amusement  in  his  leisure  hours  are  often  superior 
to  his  most  elaborate  productions,  —  so  it  is  that  ideas 
often  suggest  themselves  to  us  spontaneously,  as  it 
were,  far  surpassing  in  beauty  those  which  arise  in  the 
mind  upon  applying  ourselves  to  any  particular  sub 
ject.  Hence,  could  a  machine  be  invented  which 
would  instantaneously  arrange  on  paper  each  idea  as 
it  occurs  to  us,  without  any  exertion  on  our  part,  how 
extremely  useful  would  it  be  considered !  The  relation 
between  this  and  the  practice  of  keeping  a  journal  is 
obvious.  But  yet  the  preservation  of  our  scattered 
thoughts  is  to  be  considered  an  object  but  of  minor 
importance. 

Every  one  can  think,  but  comparatively  few  can 
express  their  thoughts.  Indeed,  how  often  do  we  hear 

[73] 


, 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

one  complain  of  his  inability  to  express  what  he  feels ! 
How  many  have  occasion  to  make  the  following  re 
mark,  "I  am  sensible  that  I  understand  this  perfectly, 
but  am  not  able  to  find  words  to  convey  my  idea  to 
others."  But  if  each  one  would  occupy  a  certain  por 
tion  of  each  day  in  looking  back  upon  the  time  which  has 
passed,  and  in  writing  down  his  thoughts  and  feelings, 
in  reckoning  up  his  daily  gains,  that  he  may  be  able  to 
detect  whatever  false  coins  have  crept  into  his  coffers, 
and  as  it  were,  in  settling  accounts  with  his  mind,  — 
not  only  would  his  daily  experience  be  greatly  in 
creased,  —  since  his  feelings  and  ideas  would  thus  be 
more  clearly  defined,  —  but  he  would  be  ready  to 
turn  over  a  new  leaf,  having  carefully  perused  the 
preceding  one,  and  would  not  continue  to  glance  care 
lessly  over  the  same  page  without  being  able  to  dis 
tinguish  it  from  a  new  one. 

Most  of  us  are  apt  to  neglect  the  study  of  our  own 
characters,  thoughts  and  feelings,  and,  for  the  purpose 
of  forming  their  own  minds,  look  to  others;  who 
should  merely  be  considered  as  different  editions  of 
the  same  great  work.  To  be  sure,  it  would  be  well  for 
us  to  examine  the  various  copies,  that  we  might  detect 
any  errors;  but  yet  it  would  be  foolish  for  one  to  borrow 
a  work  which  he  possessed  himself,  but  had  not  perused. 

In  fine,  if  we  endeavored  more  to  improve  ourselves 
by  reflection,  by  making  a  business  of  thinking  and 
giving  our  thoughts  form  and  expression,  we  should  be 
led  to  read  "not  to  contradict  and  confute,  nor  to 
believe  and  ^ake  for  granted,  nor  to  find  talk  and  dis 
course,  but  to  weigh  and  consider." 

[  74  1 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

This  is  perhaps  the  most  significant  of  these 
early  essays  of  Thoreau,  since  in  it  appears  the 
aim  which  he  kept  in  view  in  his  mature  life;  and 
also  one  or  two  of  those  quaint  thoughts  occur 
that  are  wont  to  enliven  each  paragraph  in  his 
published  books.  It  shows,  too,  how  early  he 
had  found  the  Essays  of  Bacon,  and  made  that 
sententious  book  one  of  his  models,  so  far  as  any 
author  was  his  model,  and  not  his  remembrancer. 
It  is  not  always  easy  in  these  short  pieces  to  know 
when  he  is  uttering  himself,  and  when  merely 
striving  to  meet  the  requirements  of  the  subject 
which  his  professor  has  set  before  the  class;  but 
every  now  and  then  the  real  Thoreau  breaks 
through  the  veil  of  the  school  exercise,  and  we  get 
a  glimpse  of  the  writer,  who  was  in  later  years,  and 
long  after  his  death,  to  exert  so  strong  an  in 
fluence  on  special  intellects,  not  always  akin  to  his 
own.  For  Thoreau  stimulates  as  often  by  provo 
cation  and  antagonism  as  by  sympathy,  which  he 
was  not  very  ready  to  extend  or  receive.  He  went 
through  college  as  he  went  through  life,  with  com 
paratively  few  intimates,  and  without  lending  his 
readers  much  aid  in  opening  the  prickly  burr  in 
which  his  sweetest  kernels  are  apt  to  be  lurking. 

We  now  come  to  a  longer  essay,  involving  more 
discrimination. 

[75] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

V.  The  Varying  Pursuits  of  Men 

"The  different  ideas  we  form  of  men  whose  pursuit  is 
Money,  Power,  Distinction,  Domestic  Happiness, 
Public  Good." 

Each  one  is,  for  the  most  part,  under  the  influence 
of  some  ruling  passion,  and  almost  invariably  possesses 
a  taste  for  some  particular  pursuit.  This  pursuit,  this 
object  of  all  one's  wishes  and  end  of  all  his  endeavors, 
has  great  influence  with  his  fellow-men  in  determining 
his  character:  so  that  many,  when  possessed  of  this 
seemingly  slight  knowledge,  think  to  fathom  one's 
very  thoughts  and  feelings.  When  we  hear  it  said  of  a 
man  that  Money  is  the  idol  which  he  worships;  that 
his  whole  soul  is  wrapped  up  in  the  pursuit  of  wealth, 
—  we  figure  to  ourselves  one  who  is  continually  striv 
ing  after  something  which  he  is  destined  never  to 
obtain,  and  who  does  not  enjoy  life  as  it  passes,  but 
lives  upon  expectation.  In  short,  one  who  has  painted 
to  himself  an  imaginary  Elysium,  towards  which  no 
step  in  his  progress  brings  him  nearer. 

In  other  words,  we  imagine  him  one  who  is  never 
satisfied  with  the  wealth  already  amassed,  but  expects 
that  when  arrived  at  a  certain  pitch,  everything  de 
sirable  will  be  within  his  reach.  But  alas !  when  he  has 
reached  the  summit  of  one  peak,  he  is  only  enabled  to 
realize  the  more  fully  the  immense  height  of  the  next 
in  succession.  That  every  one  is  ashamed  to  acknowl 
edge  the  pursuit  in  question  as  his  own,  is  a  fact  which 
seems  sufficiently  to  prove  its  baseness. 

Aristocrats  may  say  what  they  please,  —  liberty 
[76] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

and  equal  rights  are  and  ever  will  be  grateful,  till 
nature  herself  shall  change;  and  he  who  is  ambitious 
to  exercise  authority  over  his  fellow-beings,  with  no 
view  to  their  benefit  or  injury,  is  to  be  regarded  as 
actuated  by  peculiarly  selfish  motives.  Self -gratifica 
tion  must  be  his  sole  object.  Perhaps  he  is  desirous 
that  his  name  may  be  handed  down  to  posterity;  that 
in  after  ages  something  more  may  be  said  of  him  than 
that  he  lived  and  died.  He  may  be  influenced  by  still 
baser  motives;  he  may  take  delight  in  the  enjoyment 
of  power  merely;  and  feel  a  kind  of  satisfaction  in  the 
thought  that  he  can  command  and  be  obeyed. 

It  is  evident  then  that  he  who,  thus  influenced,  at 
tains  at  last  the  summit  of  his  wishes,  will  be  a  curse  to 
mankind.  His  deeds  may  never  be  forgotten,  —  but 
is  this  greatness?  If  so,  may  I  pass  through  unheeded 
and  unknown! 

"But  grant  that  those  can  conquer,  —  these  can  cheat,  — 
'T  is  phrase  absurd  to  call  a  villain  great." 

Small,  very  small  is  the  number  of  those  who  labor 
for  the  public  good.  There  appears  to  be  something 
noble,  something  exalted  in  giving  up  one's  own  interest 
for  that  of  his  fellow-beings,  which  excites  in  us  feel 
ings  of  admiration  and  respect.  He  is  a  true  patriot 
who,  casting  aside  all  selfish  thoughts,  and  not  suffer 
ing  his  benevolent  intentions  to  be  polluted  by  think 
ing  of  the  fame  he  is  acquiring,  presses  forward  in  the 
great  work  he  has  undertaken,  with  unremitting  zeal; 
who  is  as  one  pursuing  his  way  through  a  garden 
abounding  with  fruits  of  every  description,  without 

[77] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

turning  aside  or  regarding  the  brambles  that  impede 
his  progress;  but  pressing  onward,  with  his  eyes  fixed 
upon  the  golden  fruit  before  him. 

He  is  worthy  of  all  praise;  his  is  indeed  true  great 
ness.  He  is  satisfied  with  himself  and  all  around  him ; 
nor  is  he  troubled  with  his  stings  of  conscience,  whose 
memory  lives  with  the  smart  which  he  leaves:  but 

"One  self -approving  hour  whole  years  outweighs 
Of  stupid  starers,  and  of  loud  huzzas." 

The  preceding  papers  are  all  essays,  or  "  themes," 
as  they  were  called  in  the  dialect  of  Harvard 
College,  which  was  in  1835  just  completing  its 
second  century.  Thoreau  was  likewise  completing 
a  year,  his  eighteenth,  still  bearing  the  name  his 
parents  had  given  him  for  a  deceased  uncle  David, 
and  of  some  unknown  person  named  Henry.  He 
soon  inverted  the  order  of  these  names,  and  pre 
served  the  "David"  only  by  the  initial. 

With  his  Junior  year  in  college  he  had  been  re 
quired  to  write  essays  in  a  new  form,  —  "Foren- 
sics"  they  were  called,  implying  a  sort  of  discus 
sion  pro  or  con  by  the  student,  who  enters  now 
on  the  stage  of  debate.  In  this  stage  Thoreau  had 
been  aided  by  the  fortnightly  debates  at  the 
Concord  Lyceum  and  by  the  college  societies 
that  he  joined.  His  first  forensic  which  has  been 
preserved  here  follows  (dated  at  Cambridge, 

[781 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

September  2,  1835).    It  is  marked  "No.  2,"  but 
its  precursor  seems  to  have  perished. 

VI.  The  Comparative  Moral  Policy  of  Severe  and  Mild 
Punishments 

(This  is  the  most  noticeable,  for  thought  and 
maturity,  of  all  these  youthful  essays,  though 
there  is  an  inequality  between  its  different  parts 
natural  enough  in  a  youth  of  eighteen.  Very  note 
worthy  is  his  firm  and  concise  grasp  of  the  correct 
principle  of  Penalty,  which  was  about  that  time 
getting  stated  by  Edward  Livingston  in  America, 
and  by  Captain  Maconochie  in  Australasia.  It 
was  soon  to  be  brilliantly  and  practically  illus 
trated  by  Thoreau's  younger  contemporary,  who 
long  outlived  him,  —  Z.  R.  Brockway,  of  the 
Elmira  Reformatory  Prison,  —  now,  February, 
1917,  ninety-two  years  old,  but  retired  from 
prison  administration.) 

The  end  of  all  punishment  is  the  welfare  of  the 
State,  —  the  good  of  the  community  at  large,  —  not 
the  suffering  of  an  individual.  It  matters  not  to  the 
lawgiver  what  a  man  deserves;  for,  to  say  nothing  of 
the  impossibility  of  settling  that  point,  it  would  be 
absurd  to  pass  laws  against  prodigality,  want  of  char 
ity,  and  many  other  faults  of  the  same  nature,  —  as  if 
a  man  was  to  be  frightened  into  a  virtuous  life,  — 
though  these,  in  a  great  measure,  constitute  a  vicious 

[79] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

one.  We  leave  this  to  a  higher  tribunal.  So  far  only  as 
public  interest  is  concerned,  is  punishment  justifiable, 
—  if  we  overstep  this  bound,  our  own  conduct  becomes 
criminal. 

Let  us  observe,  in  the  first  place,  the  effects  of  sever 
ity.  Does  the  rigor  of  the  punishment  increase  the 
dread  operating  upon  the  mind  to  dissuade  us  from  the 
act?  It  certainly  does  if  it  be  unavoidable.  But  where 
death  is  a  general  punishment,  though  some  advantage 
may  seem  to  arise  from  the  severity,  yet  this  will  in 
variably  be  more  than  counterbalanced  by  the  uncer 
tainty  attending  the  execution  of  the  law.  We  find 
that  in  England,  for  instance,  where,  in  Blackstone's 
day,  160  offences  were  considered  capital,  —  between 
the  years  1805  and  1817,  of  655  who  were  indicted  for 
stealing,  113  being  capitally  convicted,  not  one  was 
executed:  and  yet  no  blame  would  attach  to  the  con 
duct  of  the  juries,  —  the  fault  was  in  the  law.  Had 
death,  on  the  other  hand,  been  certain,  the  law  could 
have  existed  but  a  very  short  time.  Feelings  of  natural 
justice,  together  with  public  sentiment,  would  have 
concurred  to  abolish  it  altogether. 

In  fact,  wherever  those  crimes  which  are  made  capi 
tal  form  a  numerous  class,  and  petty  thefts  and  for 
geries  are  raised  to  a  level  with  murder,  burglary  and 
the  like,  the  law  seems  to  defeat  its  own  ends.  The 
injured,  influenced  perhaps  by  compassion,  forbear  to 
prosecute,  and  thus  are  numerous  frauds  allowed  to 
escape  with  impunity,  for  want  of  a  penalty  propor 
tionate  to  the  offence.  Juries,  too,  actuated  by  the 
same  motives,  adopt  the  course  pointed  out  by  their 

I  80] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

feelings.  As  long  as  one  crime  is  more  heinous  and 
more  offensive  than  another,  it  is  absolutely  necessary 
that  a  corresponding  distinction  be  made  in  punishing 
them.  Otherwise,  if  the  penalty  be  the  same,  men  will 
come  to  regard  the  guilt  as  equal  in  each  case. 

It  is  enough  that  the  evil  attending  conviction  ex 
ceeds  the  expected  advantage.  This,  I  say,  is  suffi 
cient,  provided  the  consequences  be  certain,  and  the 
expected  benefit  be  not  obtained.  For  it  is  that  hope  of 
escaping  punishment,  —  a  hope  which  never  deserts 
the  rogue  as  long  as  life  itself  remains,  —  that  renders 
him  blind  to  the  consequence,  and  enables  him  to  look 
despair  in  the  face.  Take  from  him  this  hope,  and  you 
will  find  that  certainty  is  more  effectual  than  severity 
of  punishment.  No  man  will  deliberately  cut  his  own 
fingers.  The  vicious  are  often  led  on  from  one  crime  to 
another  still  more  atrocious,  by  this  very  fault  of  the 
law;  the  penalty  being  no  greater,  but  the  certainty  of 
escaping  detection  being  very  much  increased.  In 
this  case  they  act  up  to  the  old  saying,  that  "one  may 
as  well  be  hung  for  stealing  an  old  sheep  as  a  lamb." 

Some  have  asked,  "Cannot  reward  be  substituted 
for  punishment?  Is  hope  a  less  powerful  incentive  to 
action  than  fear?  When  a  political  pharmacopeia  has 
the  command  of  both  ingredients,  wherefore  employ 
the  bitter  instead  of  the  sweet?"  This  reasoning  is 
absurd.  Does  a  man  deserve  to  be  rewarded  for  re 
fraining  from  murder?  Is  the  greatest  virtue  merely 
negative,  or  does  it  rather  consist  in  the  performance 
of  a  thousand  everyday  duties,  hidden  from  the  eye  of 
the  world?  Would  it  be  good  policy  to  make  the  most 

[81  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

exalted  virtue,  even,  a  subject  of  reward  here?  Never 
theless  I  question  whether  a  pardon  has  not  a  more 
salutary  effect,  on  the  minds  of  those  not  immediately 
affected  by  it,  —  vicious  as  well  as  honest,  —  than  a 
public  execution. 

It  would  seem  then,  that  the  welfare  of  society  calls 
for  a  certain  degree  of  severity;  but  this  degree  bears 
some  proportion  to  the  offence.  If  this  distinction  is 
lost  sight  of,  punishment  becomes  unjust  as  well  as 
useless.  We  are  not  to  act  upon  the  principle  that 
crime  is  to  be  prevented  at  any  rate,  —  cost  what  it 
may.  This  is  obviously  erroneous. 

For  years  Thoreau  lived  in  Concord  Village  in 
the  near  vicinity  of  the  county  jail,  and  could  see 
the  malefactors  every  few  months  brought  there 
to  be  tried  for  their  offences,  or  punished  under 
sentence,  and  occasionally  executed  for  the  higher 
crimes.  The  ancient  wooden  jail  of  1775-77,  in 
which  his  Tory  kindred  had  been  imprisoned,  and 
from  which  they  escaped,  stood  twenty  rods 
farther  west  on  the  road  to  Acton  and  Keene, 
across  the  road  and  a  gunshot  northeast  from  the 
Town  Library,  in  which  hangs  Wilson's  pen-and- 
ink  sketch  of  that  old  prison.  This  was  drawn 
by  the  clerk  of  Sir  Archibald  Campbell,  member  of 
Parliament  and  Colonel  of  a  Highland  regiment 
which  he  raised  among  his  own  clan  in  Scotland, 
and  brought  to  the  relief  of  Sir  Henry  Clinton,  be- 

[82] 


^    2 


* 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

sieged  in  Boston  by  General  Washington.  But 
Boston  had  been  captured  before  Sir  Archibald 
got  there,  and  he  too  was  captured  and  brought 
with  a  few  of  his  officers  to  be  held  there  till 
exchanged. 

On  February  9,  1858,  Thoreau  entered  in  his 
Journal  (x,  279) :  — 

Saw  at  Simon  Brown's  a  sketch  ...  on  which  was 
written  "Concord  Jail,  near  Boston,  America,"  and 
on  a  fresher  piece  of  paper  .  .  .  was  written,  "The 

Jail  in  which  General  Sir  Archld  Campbell  & 

Wilson  were  confined  when  taken  off  Boston  in 
America  by  a  French  Privateer."  A  letter  on  the  back 
side,  from  Mr.  Lewis  of  Framingham  to  Mr.  Brown, 
stated  that  he,  Lewis,  had  received  the  sketch  from 
the  grandson  of  Wilson,  who  drew  it. 

You  are  supposed  to  be  in  the  jail-yard,  or  close  to 
it  westward,  and  see  the  old  jail,  gambrel-roofed,  the 
old  Kurd  house  (partly)  west  of  the  graveyard,  the 
graveyard,  and  Dr.  Kurd  house,  and,  over  the  last  and 
to  the  north  of  it,  a  wooded  hill,  apparently  Windmill 
Hill,  and  just  north  of  the  Hurd  house,  beyond  it, 
apparently  the  court-house  and  school-house,  each 
with  belfries,  and  the  road  to  the  Battle-Ground, 
and  a  distant  farmhouse  on  a  hill,  French's  or  But- 
trick's,  perhaps. 

This  was  the  prison  in  which  the  Jones  brothers 
were  confined.  Its  successor,  where  Thoreau  spent 

[  83] 


HENRX   DAVID  THOREAU 

a  night,  was  a  larger  structure,  built  of  heavy 
stone,  in  the  late  eighteenth  century,  of  which  the 
jailer  for  years  in  our  time  was  Sam  Staples, 
who  married  the  landlord's  daughter,  Miss  Wesson. 
The  ceremony  was  by  Emerson,  and  Alcott  was  a 
witness. 

Up  to  this  time  (1835)  no  distinct  tendency 
toward  literature  was  noticeable  in  young  Henry 
Thoreau.  His  father  and  grandfather  had  been 
mercantile  or  mechanical  in  their  way  of  life; 
the  family  in  Jersey  were  by  inheritance  mercan 
tile,  though  well  taught;  and  something  like  mer 
cantile  methods  were  always  visible  in  Henry's 
character.  His  own  accounts  and  those  of  the 
Concord  family  were  strictly  kept,  and  frugality 
was  the  rule  in  that  household,  though  it  was  al 
ways  liberal  to  the  poor  and  hospitable  to  all 
relatives  and  friends.  Henry's  maternal  grand 
father,  Asa  Dunbar,  had  indeed  been  college-edu 
cated,  and  had  been  a  clergyman  for  a  dozen  years; 
and  afterward  (for  political  reasons,  perhaps)  a 
practising  lawyer  in  New  Hampshire,  with  a  turn 
for  oratory  in  both  professions.  It  was  from  this 
side,  evidently,  that  literary  inheritance  came;  but 
Thoreau's  style  seems  to  have  been  affected  by 
that  French  elegance  to  which  his  Norman  de 
scent  entitled  him;  and  an  element  of  simplicity, 

[  84] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

noticeable  in  that  first  "composition"  of  his,  "The 
Seasons,"  was  characteristic  of  him,  when  not 
perverted  by  his  love  of  paradox  and  of  punning  — 
which  is  itself  a  sort  of  paradox.  At  any  rate,  now, 
in  the  autumn  of  1835,  the  leading  intellectual  bent 
of  his  life  began  to  appear;  and  here  is  its  first 
extant  manifestation  in  an  essay:  — 

VII.  The  Literary  Life 

"I  live  like  a  Prince:  not,  indeed,  in  the  pomp  of  great 
ness,  but  in  the  pride  of  liberty;  master  of  my 
Books,  master  of  my  time.  Speak  of  the  Pleasures 
and  Privileges  of  a  Literary  Man." 
Scriptorum  chorus  omnis  amat  nemus,  etfugit  urbes.1 

This  is  as  true  of  the  literary  man  of  the  present  day, 
as  it  is  descriptive  of  the  habits  of  the  same  class  a 
thousand  years  ago.  This  love  of  retiring  from  the 
hurry  and  bustle  of  the  world  has,  in  all  ages,  closely 
adhered  to  those  minds  most  devoted  to  study  and 
elevated  by  genius.  Such  an  one  "will  gladly  snatch 
an  hour  of  retreat,  to  let  his  thoughts  expatiate  at 
large,  and  seek  for  that  variety  in  his  own  ideas  which 
the  objects  of  sense  cannot  afford  him." 

Horace's  passion  for  retirement,  and  fondness  for 
the  country,  are  well  known:  leaving  the  bustling 
streets  of  Rome,  he  was  wont  to  amuse  himself  a,t  his 
retired  villa  in  the  Sabine  territory,  by  commenting 

1  The  motto  of  Thoreau  is  from  Horace,  Epistles,  EL  77.  By  this 
time  (beginning  of  his  Junior  year)  he  had  read  much  of  the  witty 
wisdom  of  Horace. 

[  85  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

upon  the  manners  and  characters  of  the  age.  It  is  to  a 
retirement  which  lasted  ten  years  that  we  are  indebted 
for  that  celebrated  work  by  Adam  Smith,  the  "Wealth 
of  Nations."  And  so  of  ten  thousand  others. 

This  is  pure  enjoyment.  But  this  path  can  only  be 
trodden  by  the  enlightened  and  cultivated  mind  —  it 
is  folly  for  him,  whose  intellect  has  not  been  trained  to 
study  and  meditation,  to  look  for  pleasure  here;  to 
him  the  path  is  dark  and  dreary,  barren  and  desolate. 

"This  art  of  meditation,"  says  an  author,  "is  the 
power  of  withdrawing  ourselves  from  the  world,  to 
view  the  world  moving  within  ourselves,  while  we  are 
in  repose;  as  the  artist,  by  an  optical  instrument,  con 
centrates  the  boundless  landscape  around  him,  and 
patiently  traces  all  nature  in  that  small  space." 

Innocent  and  easily  procurable  pleasures  constitute 
man's  most  lasting  happiness:  these  are  such  as  liter 
ature  and  imagination  are  both  able  and  willing  to 
afford.  That  undefmable  misery,  that  insupportable 
tediousness,  the  curse  of  those  who  have  nothing  to 
do,  is  inconsistent  with  that  relish  for  literature  and 
science,  which  is  a  source  of  continual  gratification  to 
the  mind.  He  who  is  dependent  upon  himself  alone 
for  his  enjoyments,  —  who  finds  all  he  wants  within 
himself,  —  is  really  independent;  for  to  look  to  others 
for  that  which  is  the  object  of  every  man's  pursuit, 
is  to  live  in  a  state  of  perpetual  trust  and  reliance. 
Happy  the  man  who  is  furnished  with  all  the  advan 
tages  to  relish  solitude!  he  is  never  alone,  and  yet  may 
be  retired  in  the  midst  of  a  crowd;  he  holds  sweet  con 
verse  with  the  sages  of  antiquity,  and  gathers  wisdom 

t  86} 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

from  their  discourse;  he  enjoys  the  fruit  of  their  labors, 
— •  their  knowledge  is  his  knowledge,  their  wisdom  his 
inheritance. 

It  is  knowledge  that  creates  the  difference  between 
man  and  man,  —  that  raises  one  man  above  another. 
The  mind  that  is  filled  with  this  valuable  furniture  is 
"a  magazine  richly  furnished,"  a  storehouse  of  the 
wisdom  of  ages;  from  which  Reflection,  who  is  door 
keeper,  and  has  charge  of  the  keys,  draws  forth  from 
time  to  time,  as  the  Mind,  the  proprietor,  has  need  of 
them.  The  sentiments  of  such  a  mind  are  sublime 
truths,  of  a  pure  and  noble  cast;  rising  above  what  is 
ignoble  and  mean,  they  breathe  truth,  "the  essence  of 
good":  thus,  inspired  with  a  presentiment  of  virtue, 
man  "is  led  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God." 

Many  are  the  intimations  of  the  future  moral 
ist  and  essayist  in  this  Junior  essay.  The  style  is 
rather  Johnsonian  than  Emersonian;  but  traces 
of  the  Emersonian  ideas  already  appear,  and 
also  of  "that  bold  reading  in  English  poetry, 
even  to  some  portions  or  the  whole  of  Davenant's 
'Gondibert,'"  of  which  Channing  speaks.  In  the 
allusion  to  the  artist's  instrument,  by  which  he 
"concentrates  the  boundless  landscape  around 
him,"  he  means  the  camera  obscura,  as  described 
by  Sir  Henry  Wotton  in  a  letter  to  Lord  Bacon, 
in  a  volume  of  Wotton's  poems  and  lejtters.  This 
reading  he  afterwards  extended,  so  that  he  had 

[  87  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

(by  1843)  a  commonplace-book  of  extracts,  chiefly 
poetry,  from  Chaucer  to  Cowley.  Emerson's 
"Nature"  was  not  yet  published;  but  his  Con 
cord  address  of  1835  was  printed,  and  doubtless 
Thoreau  heard  him  deliver  it. 

Another  occupation,  far  from  literary,  but 
tending  to  literature,  was  Thoreau's  in  1835,  and 
in  the  "Shattuck  house,"  later  the  Monroe  house, 
—  the  keeping  of  poultry.  Among  the  Walden 
manuscripts,  for  the  "Village"  chapter,  I  found 
this  passage,  omitted  in  his  printed  volume:  — 

When  I  kept  hens  once  in  the  Village,  I  remember 
there  one  white  rooster  in  one  of  the  broods  I  reared, 
that  went  much  by  himself,  —  a  stately-faced  young 
cockerel,  that  still  had  a  good  deal  of  the  pheasant  in 
him.  The  note  of  this  once  wild  Indian  pheasant  is 
certainly  most  remarkable.  One  night  he  was  by 
chance  shut  out  of  the  hen-yard,  and  after  long  recon- 
noitering  and  anxious  going  and  coming,  —  with  brave 
thoughts  exalting  him,  and  fancies  rushing  thick  upon 
him,  —  crowing  long,  memoriter-wise  of  his  Indian 
origin  and  wild  descent,  —  he  flew,  bird-like,  up  into 
a  tree  and  went  to  roost  there.  And  I,  who  had  wit 
nessed  this  passage  in  his  private  history,  forthwith 
wrote  these  verses  and  inscribed  them  to  him:  — 

Poor  Bird!  destined  to  lead  thy  life 
Far  in  the  adventurous  West, 
And  here  to  be  debarred  to-night 
From  thy  accustomed  nest: 

[88] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

Did  Heaven  bestow  its  quenchless  inner  light 
So  long  ago,  for  thy  small  want  to-night? 
Why  stand'st  upon  thy  toes  to  crow  so  late? 
The  Moon  is  deaf  to  thy  low,  feathered  fate. 
Or  dost  thou  think  so  to  possess  the  Night, 
And  people  the  drear  dark  with  thy  brave  sprite? 

I  fear,  imprisonment  has  spoiled  thy  wit, 
Or  ingrained  servitude  extinguished  it? 
But  no,  —  dim  memory  of  the  days  of  yore 
By  Brahmapootra  and  the  Jumna's  shore, 
Where  thy  proud  voice  flew  swiftly  o'er  the  heath, 
And  sought  thy  food  the  jungle's  shade  beneath, 
Has  taught  thy  wing  to  seek  yon  friendly  trees, 
As  erst  by  Indian  banks  of  far  Ganges. 

This  experience  at  hen-keeping  was  probably 
while  the  Thoreaus  of  the  younger  branch  — 
Helen,  John,  Henry,  and  Sophia  —  lived  with  their 
parents  in  what  had  before  1835  been  the  home 
of  Lemuel  Shattuck,  the  first  historian  of  Con 
cord,  at  the  corner  of  Main  Street  and  Academy 
Lane.  It  was  for  many  years  the  Monroe  house, 
but  has  now  passed  into  other  hands  —  the  Mon 
roe  family  in  Concord  (of  this  branch)  being  ex 
tinct,  as  are  the  Thoreaus.  This  place,  with  its 
large  garden  and  its  trees,  was  better  adapted  to 
poultry-breeding  than  the  house  of  Deacon  Park- 
man  (occupied  by  the  Thoreaus  from  1837  to 
1844,  inclusive)  with  its  narrower  space  and  lack 
of  trees.  Henry's  "  Gothic  window  "  at  the  Monroe 
house,  of  which  he  wrote  in  1835  that  it  "over- 

[89] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

looked  the  kitchen  garden,"  would  be  a  favorable 
place  for  watching  and  listening  to  this  brave 
chanticleer.  The  verses  are  plainly  of  an  early 
period  —  perhaps  earlier  than  the  ballad  of  "God 
frey  of  Boulogne,"  to  be  given  hereafter. 

The  love  of  retirement,  eulogized  in  this  essay 
upon  Professor  Channing's  text  and  Horace's 
verse,  was  a  native  trait  in  Thoreau,  and  persisted 
through  life,  though  he  was  never  a  recluse,  in  the 
strict  sense,  even  while  he  dwelt  by  Walden. 
Against  a  tendency  that  way  there  was  always  con 
tending  within  him  a  love  of  social  life  and  a  turn 
for  friendship.  And  his  love  of  home  and  of  fam 
ily  was  perhaps  the  strongest  and  most  persistent 
of  his  sentiments.  Another  native  tendency,  akin 
to  that  taste  for  retirement,  was  his  love  of  simplic 
ity  in  all  the  modes  of  life  and  in  the  style  of  writ 
ing.  Upon  this  last  topic  I  find  a  college  "theme" 
of  1835,  as  follows:  — 

VIII.  The  Simple  Style 

"The  Ways  in  which  a  Man's  Style  may  be  said  to 

offend  against  Simplicity." 

If  we  would  aim  at  perfection  in  anything,  Simplic 
ity  must  not  be  overlooked.  If  the  author  would 
acquire  literary  fame,  let  him  be  careful  to  suggest 
such  thoughts  as  are  simple  and  obvious,  and  to  ex 
press  his  meaning  distinctly  and  in  good  language. 

[90] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

To  do  this,  he  must,  in  the  first  place,  omit  all  super 
fluous  ornament,  which,  though  very  proper  in  its 
place,  —  if,  indeed,  it  can  be  said  to  have  any  in  good 
composition, — tends  rather  to  distract  the  mind,  than 
to  render  a  passage  more  clear  and  striking,  or  an  idea 
more  distinct.  I  do  not  pretend  to  say  that  whatever 
adds  to  the  grace,  detracts  from  the  simplicity  of  one's 
style.  The  ancient  robe  l  is  the  plainest  dress  imagin 
able,  yet  where  will  you  find  one  more  truly  beautiful? 
It  is  equally  so  to  the  half -naked  savage,  and  to  the 
foppish  devotee  of  fashion. 

Another  very  common  fault  is  that  of  using  uncom 
mon  words,  —  words  which  neither  render  our  mean 
ing  more  obvious,  nor  our  composition  more  elegant. 
In  this  case  the  reader's  attention  is  withdrawn  from 
the  subject,  and  is  wholly  employed  upon  the  rare, 
and  for  that  reason  offensive,  expression,  —  offensive, 
too,  because  it  argues  study  and  premeditation  in  the 
author.  Obscurity  may  properly  be  called  the  opposite 
of  simplicity.  Hence,  whatever,  contributes  to  this,  as 
far-fetched  metaphors  and  images,  —  in  fact,  all  that 
kind  of  ornament  that  forms  the  characteristic  of  the 
Florid  Style,  —  is  not  merely  superfluous,  but  abso 
lutely  incompatible  with  excellence. 

The  style  in  question  does  not  seem  to  be  peculiar  to 
such  topics  as  are  common  and  familiar  (as  some  have 

1  By  "ancient  robe"  Thoreau  evidently  means  the  flowing 
garment  of  Greece  and  Rome,  which  at  this  time  was  brought 
much  in  evidence  by  the  taste  for  Greek  designs,  and  by  the 
drawings  of  Retsch,  Flaxman,  and  others,  following  the  lead  of 
Goethe.  Thoreau  followed  Milton  all  his  days,  in  preference  to 
Shakespeare. 

[  91  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

affirmed);  for  the  most  sublime  and  noblest  precepts 
may  be  conveyed  in  a  plain  and  simple  strain.  The 
Scriptures  afford  abundant  proof  of  this.  What  images 
can  be  more  natural,  what  sentiments  of  greater  weight, 
and  at  the  same  time  more  noble  and  exalted,  than 
those  with  which  they  abound?  They  possess  no  local 
or  relative  ornament  which  may  be  lost  in  a  transla 
tion;  clothed  in  whatever  dress,  they  will  retain  their 
peculiar  beauties.  Here  is  simplicity  itself.  Every  one 
allows  this,  every  one  admires  it,  —  yet  how  few  at 
tain  to  it!  What  hosts  of  writers,  hourly  contending 
for  popularity,  depend  for  success  on  their  superior 
simplicity  of  style  alone?  Shakespeare,  they  say,  has 
thus  acquired  immortal  fame,  and  this  is  the  dis 
tinguishing  trait  in  his  writings.  The  union  of  wisdom 
and  simplicity  is  plainly  hinted  at  in  the  following  lines 
by  Milton:  — 

"  Suspicion  sleeps 

At  Wisdom's  gate,  and  to  Simplicity 
Resigns  her  charge." 

Milton  had  long  been  a  favorite  among  the 
Puritans  of  New  England;  together  with  Watts, 
he  almost  monopolized  the  religious  interest  of 
New  England  in  poetry,  until  the  graceful  and 
witty  common  sense  of  Pope,  and  the  serious  sen 
timent  of  Young  and  Doddridge,  in  some  degree 
displaced  their  popularity.  Thoreau's  interest  in 
Milton,  however,  was  largely  a  moral  one,  com 
bining  with  his  sense  of  that  poet's  exquisite  ap 
preciation  of  rural  nature.  A  year  or  two  later 

[  92] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

than  the  essay  just  quoted  Thoreau  returned  to 
this  poet  with  two  essays  (one  a  fragment)  which 
are  worth  quoting:  — 

IX.  Characteristics  of  Milton's  Poesy 

"Point  out  particulars  in  the  Speeches  of  Moloch  and 
the  rest  (P.L.,  Book  n)  which  appear  to  you 
Characteristic." 

"After  short  silence,  then, 
And  summons  read,  the  great  consult  began.*' 

Satan,  Moloch,  Belial,  Mammon,  and  Beelzebub, 
"the  flower  of  Heaven  once"  —  but  now  the  pride  of 
Hell,  successively  harangue  the  assembly. 

First  Satan,  "author  of  all  ill,"  takes  it  upon  him 
self  to  comfort  himself  and  his  mates  and  followers, 
by  assuring  them  that  all  is  not  lost,  that  Heaven  may 
yet  be  regained.  Fit  ruler  of  such  a  host!  By  showing 
them  how  good  has  already  come  out  of  evil,  by  re 
fraining  to  dwell  on  their  misfortunes,  and  appearing 
solicitous  only  to  restore  them  to  their  former  condi 
tion,  —  though  in  reality  preferring  "to  reign  in  Hell 
rather  than  serve  in  Heaven,"  —  he  effectually  revives 
their  drooping  energies,  and  proves  himself  the  master 
spirit  of  the  host. 

From  the  contents  of  the  preceding  book  we  should 
expect  to  observe  in  Satan's  speech,  ambition  aided 
by  matchless  cunning:  the  former  it  was,  that  first 
suggested  the  revolt;  and  what  but  the  latter  could 
have  so  far  carried  his  plans  into  execution?  The  poet 
has  not  failed  to  do  his  character  justice  in  the  present 

[93] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

instance.  His  speech  is  marked  throughout  by  superior 
subtlety;  and  when  at  last  the  "devilish  counsel,"  first 
proposed  and  in  part  devised  by  himself,  is  adopted,  — 
the  spirit  of  revenge  which  first  prompted  the  under 
taking,  retires  before  self-interest,  and  gives  place  for  a 
while  to  ambition.  Proud,  as  it  were,  of  this  new  re 
sponsibility,  he  declares  that  "none  shall  partake  with 
him  this  enterprise";  and  while  they  seek  to  render 
Hell  more  tolerable,  reserves  to  himself  the  glory  of 
their  deliverance;  thus  proving  himself  both  cunning 
to  devise  and  prompt  to  execute. 

What  a  contrast  does  Satan  afford  to  the  exasper 
ated  Moloch!  Here  is  no  dissimulation,  no  hellish 
craft,  no  nice  calculation  of  chances,  no  ambition  to 
shine;  self-interest  is  swallowed  up  in  revenge.  Urged 
by  despair,  he  counsels  to  scale  the  walls  of  Heaven, 
and  oppose  infernal  thunder  to  the  Almighty's  en 
gines.  Danger  he  sees  none,  —  but  perhaps 

"The  way  seems  difficult,  and  steep  to  scale." 

The  difficulty  is  to  get  at  the  enemy.  He  is  a  "plain, 
blunt  devil,"  who  only  speaks  right  on;  no  orator  as 
Satan  is;  easily  exasperated,  but  not  so  easily  pacified, 
—  the  creature  of  impulse. 

Next  rose  Belial,  second  to  none  in  dissimulation, 
"nor  yet  behind  in  hate."  With  a  fair  outside,  all  is 
false  and  hollow  within.  As  is  often  the  case,  his  faint 
heart  suggests  a  wise  and  prudent  course;  but  he  is 
none  the  less  a  devil,  though  a  prudent  one.  Difficul 
ties  and  dangers  innumerable  beset  his  path,  —  he 
thanks  his  stars  that  so  much  remains;  dwells  upon  the 

[  94  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

evils  to  be  apprehended  from  obstinately  persevering 
in  a  bad  cause;  and,  closing,  touches  upon  the  effect  of 
submission  to  appease  the  victor. 

Next  Mammon  proves  himself  the  same  cool  and 
deliberate  calculator,  who  engrosses  so  large  a  share  of 
Man's  homage  at  the  present  day.  War  has  no  charms 
for  him.  Deficient  neither  in  courage  nor  cunning,  he 
is  for  adopting  the  readier  and  surer  way  to  counteract 
the  Almighty's  vengeance  by  seeking  to  compose  the 
present  evils, 

"  Dismissing  quite  all  thoughts  of  war." 

Cui  bono  ?  is  his  motto.  Though  he  looks  only  upon 
the  dark  side  of  the  picture,  when  he  speaks  of  the 
project  to  "dethrone  the  King  of  Heaven,"  it  is  the 
effect  not  of  fear,  or  despair,  but  a  worldly,  or  rather  a 
hellish  policy. 

Beelzebub  resembles  in  many  respects  his  infernal 
master.  His  harangue  breathes  throughout  a  true  Pan- 
demonian  spirit.  The  most  consummate  skill,  the  fierc 
est  hate  and  a  determined  spirit  of  revenge  mark  him 
the  devil  of  devils.  He  is  the  cool,  the  deliberate,  the 
accomplished  villain.  Mischief  is  his  element;  he  loves 
it  for  its  own  sake. 

The  skill  with  which  Milton  has  adapted  every  part, 
and  especially  the  opening  of  each  harangue  to  the 
character  of  the  speaker,  is  deserving  of  notice.  In 
deed,  the  first  two  or  three  lines  are  characteristic 
in  each  case,  entirely,  of  the  individual,  —  a  perfect 
sample  of  the  whole  speech.  This  may  have  been 
the  work  of  chance,  but  it  certainly  looks  like  design. 

[95  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Satan  begins  his  address  in  a  formal  and  courtier-like 
manner :  — 

"Powers  and  Dominions,  Deities  of  Heaven! 
For,  since  no  deep  within  her  gulf  can  hold 
Immortal  vigor,  though  oppressed  and  fallen, 
I  give  not  Heaven  for  lost." 

Here  is  a  set  speech,  cut  and  dried,  as  it  were,  for  the 
occasion.  The  commencement  of  the  second  line  be 
trays  a  hidden  purpose,  —  some  proposition  to  be 
made,  or  project  to  be  unfolded.  The  very  indirectness 
with  which  the  subject  is  introduced  is  a  proof  of 
design,  a  warning  of  craft  to  be  used  in  the  pursuit  of  a 
favorite  object.  Again,— 

"My  sentence  is  for  open  war:  of  wiles, 
More  unexpert,  I  boast  not." 

Here  is  a  straightforwardness  and  singleness  of  pur 
pose,  a  contempt  of  ornament  and  art.  The  first  three 
words  argue  a  mind  made  up.  The  indicative  is  simply 
declares  his  resolution;  as  if  it  only  remained  to  make 
known  what  was  already  resolved.  How  different  the 
following ! 

"I  should  be  much  for  open  war,  O  Peers! 
As  not  behind  in  hate,  if,"  etc. 

A  should  and  an  if  to  begin  with!  The  second  word 
should  implies  hesitation;  the  if  in  the  next  line  is  a 
harbinger  of  fear  and  irresolution.  Indeed,  the  whole 
speech  is  one  string  of  interrogatories,  plentifully 
sprinkled  with  words  expressive  of  doubt  and  uncer 
tainty,  —  such  as  could,  would,  should,  yet,  and  or. 
Timidity  is  the  mother  of  inquisitiveness. 

[  96  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 
Next  Mammon  spoke,  — 

"Either  to  disenthrone  the  King  of  Heaven 
We  war,  if  war  be  best,  or  to  regain 
Our  own  right  lost:  — " 

These  words,  it  is  true,  express  uncertainty  as  to 
the  course  to  be  pursued,  yet  it  is  the  uncertainty,  not 
of  fear  and  despair,  but  of  self-interest.  The  second 
line  will  not  admit  of  any  other  interpretation.  The 
manner  in  which  the  all-absorbing  subject,  war,  is  in 
troduced,  gives  promise  of  a  ready  support  in  case  war 
should  be  declared. 

Beelzebub's  elaborate  exordium  would  by  no  means 
disgrace  His  Satanic  Majesty,  — 

"Thrones  and  Imperial  Powers!  Offspring  of  Heaven, 
Ethereal  Virtues!" 

He  has  evidently  followed  some  such  rule  as  that 
laid  down  by  Cicero,  —  "Not  to  compose  the  intro 
duction  first,  but  to  consider  first  the  main  argument, 
and  let  that  suggest  the  exordium."  Even  in  these  few 
lines  his  resemblance  to  Satan,  his  ambitious  master 
and  ruler,  is  sufficiently  obvious. 

This  essay  breaks  off  abruptly,  as  if  it  had  been 
left  unfinished,  or  had  lost  portions  of  itself;  as 
happened  with  the  next  one,  —  of  which  only 
those  pages  were  left  of  which  the  author's  later 
judgment  approved. 


97 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

X.  Milton's  IS  Allegro  and  II  Penseroso 
Fragments  of  a  Volunteer  Essay 

(This  seems  to  have  been  a  paper  written  for 
some  college  society,  and  not  at  the  request  of  the 
professor  or  class  tutor.  Of  its  fourteen  pages  only 
the  fifth  and  ninth,  with  the  eleventh  to  the  four 
teenth,  inclusive  (six  in  all),  were  left  intact;  the 
first  four  pages  have  two  thirds  of  their  contents 
torn  away;  while  of  the  seventh  and  eighth  more 
than  half  is  gone.  Thus  nearly  a  third  is  missing. 
What  remains  runs  well  together  and  is  worth  pre 
serving,  as  a  genial  interpretation  of  the  two  charm 
ing  youthful  poems  of  Milton,  and  an  indication 
that  Thoreau  had  read  before  January,  1837,  the 
other  authors  named,  —  or  enough  of  them  to  un 
derstand  their  tone  and  drift.  Six  months  before 
graduating  (the  inscribed  date),  he  was  nineteen 
and  a  half  years  old.) 

The  precise  date  of  these  poems  is  not  known;  prob 
ably,  however,  they  were,  together  with  his  "Comus" 
and  "Lycidas,"  the  fruit  of  those  five  years  of  literary 
leisure,  from  1632  to  1637,  which  our  author  is  known 
to  have  spent  at  Horton  in  Buckinghamshire.  They 
were  first  published  in  1645;  but  for  nearly  a  century 
obtained  but  little  notice  from  the  lovers  of  polite  lit 
erature,  —  the  Addisons  and  Popes  of  the  day.  They 
are  thought  by  Dr.  Warton  to  have  been  indebted 

[  98  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

to  Handel's  music  for  whatever  notice  they  at  last 
obtained. 

"L* Allegro"  is  not  an  effort  of  poetic  genius;  but 
rather  an  outpouring  of  poetic  feeling.  We  have  here 
a  succession  of  pleasing  and  striking  images,  which  are 
dwelt  upon  just  long  enough.  The  metre  is  admirably 
adapted  to  the  subject.  The  reader  can  hardly  believe 
he  is  not  one  of  the  party  tripping  it  over  hill  and  dale 
"on  the  light  fantastic  toe."  A  verse  of  poetry  should 
strike  the  reader  as  it  did  the  poet,  —  as  a  whole,  — 
not  so  much  the  sign  of  an  idea  as  that  idea  itself. 

"As  Imagination  bodies  forth 
The  forms  of  things  unknown,  the  Poet's  pen 
Turns  them  to  shapes." 

The  parts  and  members  of  his  verses  are  equally 
appropriate  and  striking.  With  the  idea  comes  the 
very  word;  if  its  sense  is  not  wanted,  its  sound  is. 

Lo!  the  sun  is  up,  the  hounds  are  out;  the  plowman 
has  already  driven  his  team  afield,  and  as  he  gaily 
treads  the  fragrant  furrow,  his  merry  whistle  is  heard 
the  fields  around,  responsive  to  the  milkmaid's  song,  — 
who  now  repairs  with  pail  on  head  and  quick  elastic 
step,  to  her  humble  toil.  The  mower,  too,  has  com 
menced  his  labors  in  the  meadow  at  hand,  — 

"And  every  shepherd  tells  his  tale 
Under  the  hawthorn  in  the  dale." 

Such  a  picture  of  rural  felicity  as  is  presented  in 
these  and  the  following  lines  is  rarely  to  be  met  with 
even  in  poetry.  Fancy  has  her  hands  full,  —  a  thou 
sand  images  are  flitting  before  her,  bringing  with 

[99] 


x    HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

them  a  crowd  of  delightful  associations;  and  she  is 
forced,  in  spite  of  herself,  to  join  the  revel  and  thread 
the  mazes  of  the  dance. 

Johnson  has  well  observed  in  his  biographical  notice 
of  Milton,  —  "No  mirth  can  indeed  be  found  in  his 
melancholy,  but  I  am  afraid  that  I  always  meet  some 
melancholy  in  his  mirth."  His  mirth  wears  a  pensive 
hue;  his  melancholy  is  but  a  pleasing  contemplative 
mood.  The  transition  from  "L5 Allegro"  to  "II  Pen- 
seroso"  is  by  no  means  abrupt;  the  vain  deluding  joys 
which  are  referred  to  are  not  those  "unreproved 
pleasures"  which  the  poet  has  just  recorded,  —  for 
they  are  by  no  means  inconsistent  with  that  soft  mel 
ancholy  which  he  paints;  but  they  are  rather  the  fickle 
pensioners  of  that  Euphrosyne,  whose  sister  graces  are 
Meat  and  Drink,  —  a  very  different  crew  from  that 
which  waits  upon  the  "daughter  fair"  of  Zephyr  and 
Aurora.  The  latter  are  content  with  daylight  and  a 
moderate  portion  of  the  night:  when  tales  are  done,  — 

"To  bed  they  creep, 
By  whispering  winds  soon  lulled  asleep." 

But  the  others  proceed  to  evening  amusements,  and 
even  to  the  London  theatres,  and  the  "well-trod 
stage,"  —  but  only 

"If  Jonson's  learned  sock  be  on, 
Or  sweetest  Shakespeare,  Fancy's  child, 
Warble  his  native  wood-notes  wild." 

Beginning  with  the  warning  to  idle  joys,  that  they 
depart  and  leave  the  poet  to  "divinest  Melancholy," 
we  soon  come  to  that  picture  of  her,  perhaps  the  finest 

[  100  1 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

in  the  whole  poem.  A  sable  stole  drawn  over  her  de 
cent  shoulders,  with  slow  and  measured  steps,  and  looks 
that  hold  "sweet  converse  with  the  skies,"  reflecting 
a  portion  of  their  own  placidness,  she  gradually  draws 
near.  But  lo!  the  Cherub  Contemplation  delays  her 
lingering  steps;  her  eyes  upraised  to  Heaven,  the  earth 
is  for  a  space  forgot.  Time  loiters  on  his  course,  were 
it  for  but  a  moment;  Past,  Present,  and  Future  mingle 
as  one. 

[Here  a  lacuna.] 

The  picture  of  Morning  in  "II  Penseroso"  differs 
greatly  from  that  in  "L* Allegro,"  and  introduces  that 
mention  of  the  storm- wind  in  a  cloudy  day,  — 
"When  rocking  winds  are  piping  loud,"  — 

a  very  poetic  touch.  A  later  poet,  Thomson,  attrib 
utes  the  melancholy  sighing  of  the  wind  to  "the  sad 
Genius  of  the  coming  storm."  Gray,  too,  seems  to 
have  been  equally  affected  by  it.  "Did  you  never 
observe,"  he  writes,  "that  pause,  as  the  gust  is  re-col 
lecting  itself,  and  rising  upon  the  ear  in  a  shrill  and 
plaintive  tone,  like  the  swell  of  an  ^Eolian  harp?  I  do 
assure  you  there  is  nothing  in  the  world  so  like  the 
voice  of  a  spirit." 

We  are  told  that  it  was  while  exposed  to  a  violent 
storm  of  wind  and  rain,  attended  by  frequent  flashes 
of  lightning,  among  the  wilds  of  Glen  Ker,  that  Burns 
composed  his  far-famed  song,  — 

"Scots  wha  hae  with  Wallace  bled." 

Ossian  was  the  child  of  the  storm;  its  music  was  ever 
grateful  to  his  ear.  Hence  his  poetry  breathes  through- 

f  101  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

out  a  tempestuous  spirit,  —  when  read,  as  it  should 
be,  at  the  still  hour  of  night,  the  very  rustling  of  a  leaf, 
stirred  by  the  impatient  reader,  seems  to  his  excited 
imagination  the  fitful  moanings  of  the  wind,  or  sigh- 
ings  of  the  breeze. 

But  if  Milton's  winds  rock,  they  pipe  also.  Even  the 
monotony  of  a  summer  shower  is  relieved  by  the  cheer 
ful  pattering  of  "minute  drops  from  off  the  eaves"; 
and  if  the  heavens  are  for  a  few  moments  overcast,  the 
splendors  of  the  succeeding  sunshine  are  heightened 
by  the  contrast. 

It  is  amusing  to  know  that  Milton  was  a  performer 
on  the  bass-viol.  He  is  said  even  to  have  been  a  com 
poser,  though  nothing  remains  to  prove  the  assertion. 
It  was  his  practice,  say  his  biographers,  when  he  had 
dined,  to  play  on  some  musical  instrument  and  make 
his  wife  sing,  or  sing  himself.  She,  he  said,  had  a  good 
voice  but  no  ear. 

This  partiality  for  the  sister  Muses  is  nowhere  more 
manifest  than  in  these  two  poems.  Whether  in  a 
mirthful  or  a  pensive  mood,  the  linked  sweetness  of 
"soft  Lydian  airs,"  the  "pealing  organ"  or  the  "full 
voiced  quire,"  dissolves  him  into  ecstasies. 

These  poems  are  to  be  valued,  if  for  no  other  reason, 
on  account  of  the  assistance  they  afford  us  in  forming 
our  estimate  of  the  man  Milton.  They  place  him  in  an 
entirely  new  and  extremely  pleasing  light  to  the  reader 
who  was  previously  familiar  with  him  as  the  author  of 
the  "Paradise  Lost"  alone.  If  we  venerated,  we  may 
now  admire  and  love  him.  The  immortal  Milton 
seems  for  a  space  to  have  put  on  mortality;  to  have 

]       . 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

snatched  a  moment  from  the  weightier  cares  of  Heaven 
and  Hell,  to  wander  for  a  while  among  the  sons  of 
men.  But  we  mistake;  though  his  wings  (as  he  tells  us) 
were  already  sprouted,  he  was  content  as  yet  to  linger 
awhile,  with  childlike  affection,  amid  the  scenes  of  his 
native  Earth. 

The  tenor  of  these  verses  is  in  keeping  with  the 
poet's  early  life;  he  was,  as  he  confesses,  a  reader  of 
romances,  an  occasional  frequenter  of  the  playhouse, 
and  not  at  all  averse  to  spending  a  cheerful  evening 
now  and  then  with  some  kindred  spirits  about  Town. 
We  see  nothing  here  of  the  Puritan.  The  "storied 
windows,"  which  were  afterward  such  an  abomination 
in  his  eyes,  admit  a  welcome,  though  sombre  light. 
The  learning  of  Jonson  and  the  wild  notes  of  Shake 
speare  are  among  the  last  resources  of  the  mirthful 
"L'Allegro." 

The  student  of  Milton  will  ever  turn  with  satisfac 
tion  from  contemplating  the  stern  nonconformist,  and 
the  bold  and  consistent  defender  of  civil  and  religious 
liberty,  engaged,  but  not  involved,  in  a  tedious  and 
virulent  controversy,  — 

"With  darkness  and  with  dangers  compassed  round,"  — 

his  dearest  hopes  disappointed,  and  himself  shut  out 
from  the  "cheerful  light  of  day,"  —  to  these  fruits  of 
his  earlier  and  brighter  years.  Though  of  the  earth, 
yet  were  they  the  flights  of  one  who  was  contemplating 
to  soar 

"Above  the  Aonian  mount,"  — 

a  heavenward  and  unattempted  course. 

[  103  1 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

I  have  not  undertaken  to  write  a  critique.  I  have 
dwelt  upon  the  poet's  beauties,  and  not  so  much  as 
glanced  at  his  blemishes.  This  may  be  the  result  of 
pure  selfishness.  Poetry  is  but  a  recreation.  A  pleasing 
image  or  a  fine  sentiment  loses  none  of  its  charms, 
though  Burton  or  Beaumont  and  Fletcher,  or  Mar 
lowe  or  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  may  have  written  some 
thing  very  similar,  or  even,  in  another  connection, 
have  used  the  identical  word  whose  aptness  we  so 
much  admire.  That  always  appeared  to  me  a  con 
temptible  kind  of  criticism,  which  can  deliberately, 
and  in  cold  blood,  dissect  the  sublimest  passage,  and 
take  pleasure  in  the  detection  of  slight  verbal  incon 
gruities.  It  was,  when  applied  to  Milton,  little  better 
than  sacrilege;  and  those  critics  who  condescended  to 
practise  it,  were  to  be  ranked  with  the  parish  officers 
who,  prompted  by  a  profane  and  mercenary  spirit, 
tore  from  their  grave,  and  exposed  for  sale,  what  were 
imagined  to  be  the  remains  of  Milton. 

This  is,  in  fact,  an  appreciation  rather  than  a 
criticism,  and  one  of  high  merit.  So  far  as  it  goes, 
there  are  hardly  better  passages  in  the  essays  of 
Dr.  Channing  and  of  Emerson  on  Milton,  in  this 
same  decade  of  1830-40.  Thoreau's  mention  in  it 
of  the  pseudo-Ossian  of  Macpherson,  shows  that 
he,  like  Napoleon  and  Lamartine,  was  early  inter 
ested  in  that  mingling  of  sublimity  and  fustian 
which  the  canny  Highlander  imposed  on  the 
world,  from  his  imperfect  readings  of  Gaelic  origi- 

[  104  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

nals  among  the  folk-lore  poems  in  Scotch  and 
Irish  verse  about  Fingal  and  his  heroes.  While 
living  at  New  York  in  1843  Thoreau  found  in  a 
library  the  "Genuine  Remains"  of  Ossian.  He 
made  much  use  of  them  in  a  lecture  on  Poetry 
which  he  was  then  writing  for  the  Concord  Ly 
ceum,  where  he  delivered  it  late  in  November, 
1843.  Some  of  this  came  out  in  the  "Week"  in 
1849. 

Once  entered  upon  topics  of  literature,  Thoreau 
was  in  his  right  path;  it  was  an  easy  one,  and  his 
essays  grew  longer,  as  those  of  the  Seniors  are 
wont  to  be.  It  was  not  so  common  then  to  crowd 
the  college  course  with  electives,  or  "voluntaries" 
as  they  were  called  in  Thoreau's  day;  although  he 
appears  to  have  chosen  more  than  was  then  the 
customary  number.  He  left  Cambridge  more  or 
less  qualified  to  read  and  write  Greek,  Latin, 
French,  German,  Italian,  and  Spanish;  and  his 
English  reading  had  become  unusually  extensive. 
Here  is  an  essay  on  a  complex  subject,  such  as 
Professor  Channing  delighted  to  give,  —  one, 
too,  that,  if  dealt  with  fairly,  required  much  read 
ing  by  the  student. 


[  105  ] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

XI.  National  and  Individual  Genius 

"Show  how  it  is  that  a  Writer's  Nationality  and  Indi 
vidual  Genius  may  be  fully  manifested  in  a  Play 
or  other  Literary  Work,  upon  a  Foreign  or  Ancient 
Subject,  —  and  yet  full  Justice  be  done  to  the 
Subject/' 

Man  has  been  called  "a  bundle  of  habits."  This 
truth,  I  imagine,  was  the  discovery  of  a  philosopher,  — 
one  who  spoke  as  he  thought  and  thought  before  he 
spoke,  —  who  realized  it,  and  felt  it  to  be,  as  it  were, 
literally  true.  It  has  a  deeper  meaning,  and  admits  of  a 
wider  application  than  is  generally  allowed.  The  vari 
ous  bundles  which  we  label  French,  English  and 
Scotch  men,  differ  only  in  this,  —  that  while  the  first 
is  made  up  of  gay,  showy  and  fashionable  habits,  — 
the  second  is  crowded  with  those  of  a  more  sombre 
hue,  bearing  the  stamp  of  utility  and  comfort;  and 
the  contents  of  the  third,  it  may  be,  are  as  rugged  and 
unyielding  as  their  very  envelope.  The  color  and  tex 
ture  of  these  contents  vary  with  different  bundles;  but 
the  material  is  uniformly  the  same. 

Man  is  an  abstract  and  general  term;  it  denotes  the 
genus,  —  French,  English,  Scotch,  etc.,  —  are  but  the 
differentiae.  It  is  with  the  genus  alone  that  the  philos 
opher  and  poet  have  to  do.  Where,  then,  shall  they 
study  it?  As  well  here  as  there,  surely,  if  it  be  every 
where  the  same;  one  may  as  well  view  the  moon  from 
Mount  ^Etna  as  from  the  Andes;  her  phenomena  will 
be  equally  obvious,  his  map  equally  correct,  whatever 
the  point  from  which  he  observed  her. 

t  106] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

But  he  must  look  through  a  national  glass.  It  may 
be  desirable,  indeed,  to  see  clearly  with  the  naked  eye; 
we  should  then  need  no  astronomers;  yet  the  same 
glass,  since  a  glass  we  must  use,  will  afford  us  an 
equally  accurate  view,  whatever  station  we  choose. 
If  our  view  be  affected  at  all  by  the  quality  of  the 
instrument,  the  effect  will  be  constant  and  uni 
form,  though  our  observatories  be  rolled  about  upon 
wheels. 

It  would  seem  then,  that  an  author's  nationality 
may  be  equally  obvious,  and  yet  full  justice  be  done 
to  his  subject,  whether  that  subject  be  an  ancient  or 
modern,  foreign  or  domestic  one.  By  "full  justice"  I 
mean  that  he  may  do  all  he  intended  to  do,  or  that 
any  one  can  reasonably  expect  or  require.  Nay,  fur 
ther,  that  nationality  may  be  even  more  striking  in 
treating  of  a  foreign  than  a  domestic  subject;  since 
what  is  peculiar  and  national  in  the  writer,  by  the  side 
of  what  is  real  history  and  matter  of  fact  in  the  de 
scription,  will  be  made  the  more  manifest  by  the  con 
trast.  What  is  peculiar  in  the  French  character  will 
sooner  appear  in  a  book  of  travels  than  a  domes 
tic  diary;  in  his  descriptions  of  foreign  scenes  and 
customs  the  Frenchman  himself  will  be  the  most  con 
spicuous  object.  Suppose  him  to  weave  these  ma 
terials  into  a  novel  or  poem,  —  to  introduce  his  inn 
keeper  or  postilion,  —  he  is  fully  adequate  to  his  task; 
he  has  only  to  learn  particulars.  His  must  be  an  induc 
tive  method,  —  the  phenomena  he  observes  are  to  be 
referred  to  a  general  law. 

Is  human  nature  our  study,  —  the  humanity  of  the 

[  107  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Romans,  for  instance,  —  we  ourselves,  our  friends,  the 
community,  are  our  best  text-books.  We  wish  to  paint, 
perhaps,  the  old  Roman  courtier;  so  far  as  we  know 
anything  of  him,  we  know  him  as  a  man;  as  possessing 
in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  the  same  faults  and  virtues 
that  we  observe  in  men  of  modern  times.  Does  he  pos 
sess  different  ones,  he  is  a  sealed  book  to  us.  He  is  no 
longer  one  of  us;  we  can  no  more  conceive  of  him,  de 
scribe  him,  class  him,  than  the  naturalist  can  class  or 
conceive  of,  —  he  knows  not  what;  an  animal,  it  may 
be,  —  but  he  neither  walks,  swims  nor  flies,  —  eats, 
drinks  nor  sleeps,  and  yet  lives. 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  that  peculiar  structure  and 
bent  of  mind  which  distinguishes  an  individual  from 
his  nation.  Much  that  has  already  been  said  will  apply 
equally  well  to  this  part  of  our  subject.  In  a  play  or 
poem  the  author's  individual  genius  is  distinguished 
by  the  points  of  character  he  seizes  upon,  and  the 
features  most  fondly  dwelt  upon,  as  well  as  the  peculiar 
combination  he  delights  in,  and  the  general  effect  of 
his  picture.  Into  his  idea  of  his  fellow  enters  one  half 
himself;  he  views  his  subject  only  through  himself,  and 
strange  indeed  would  it  be,  did  not  the  portrait  betray 
the  medium  through  which  the  original  was  observed. 
As  the  astronomer  must  use  his  own  eyes,  though  he 
looks  through  a  national  glass,  not  only  are  we  to  con 
sider  the  quality  of  the  lens,  but  also  the  condition  of 
the  observer's  visual  organs.  A  defect  in  his  sight  will 
not  be  made  up  for  by  distance,  —  will  be  equally 
evident,  whether  it  be  the  instrument  itself  or  the  star 
to  which  it  points,  that  is  subjected  to  his  scrutiny. 

[  108] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

To  read  history  with  advantage  one  must  possess, 
we  are  told,  a  vivid  imagination,  that  he  may  in  a 
measure  realize  and  enter  into  the  spirit  of  the  story, 
so  as  to  make  himself  familiar  with  the  scenes  and 
characters  there  described.  Every  one  is  differently 
impressed,  and  each  impression  bears  the  stamp  of  the 
individual's  taste  and  genius.  One  seizes  greedily  upon 
circumstances  which  another  neglects;  one  associates 
with  an  event  those  scenes  which  witnessed  it,  —  one 
grasps  the  ludicrous,  another  the  marvellous;  and  thus, 
when  the  taste  and  judgment  come  to  weave  these 
conceptions  into  poetry,  their  identity  is  not  lost. 
Here,  then,  surely,  one's  individual  genius  is  fully 
manifested. 

The  original  "Sweet  Auburn"  has  been  ascertained 
to  be  Lishoy  in  the  county  of  Westmeath,  Ireland. 
Though  Goldsmith  intended  to  represent  an  English 
village,  he  took  from  Lishoy,  says  his  biographer,  "only 
such  traits  and  characteristics  as  might  be  applied  to 
village  life  in  England,  and  modified  them  accordingly. 
He  took  what  belonged  to  human  nature  in  rustic  life, 
and  adapted  it  to  the  allotted  scene.  In  the  same  way  a 
painter  takes  his  models  from  real  life  around  him,  even 
when  he  would  paint  a  foreign  or  a  classic  group."  We 
may  suppose  Goldsmith  to  have  written  this  justly 
celebrated  poem  in  the  Irish  village  named,  where  he 
passed  his  youth.  Many  of  his  observations  apply 
rather,  in  their  full  extent,  to  an  Irish  than  an  English 
village;  but  this  is  a  difference  not  in  kind,  but  degree. 
The  desolation  which  was  the  subject  of  these  verses 
was  by  no  means  confined  to  his  native  country. 

[  109] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

"111  fares  the  land,  to  hastening  ills  a  prey, 
Where  wealth  accumulates  and  men  decay,"  — 

alas !  a  truth  but  too  universal  in  its  application. 

Has  not  this  author  done  full  justice  to  his  subject? 
Let  the  popularity  of  his  poem  answer.  Goldsmith  is 
visible  in  every  line.  As  to  his  nationality,  I  will  only 
add  that  the  hypercritical  have  discovered  that  many 
of  his  descriptions  "savor  more  of  the  rural  scenery 
and  rustic  life  of  an  English  than  an  Irish  village"; 
which  is  proof  enough  that  what  is  national  makes  no 
mean  figure  in  the  "Deserted  Village."  D'Israeli, 
speaking  of  Dante,  observes;  "Every  great  genius  is 
influenced  by  the  objects  and  feelings  which  occupy 
his  own  times,  —  only  differing  from  the  race  of  his 
brothers  by  the  magical  force  of  his  developments;  the 
light  he  sends  forth  over  the  world  he  often  catches 
from  the  faint  and  unobserved  spark  which  will  die 
away  and  turn  to  nothing  in  another  hand." 

So  confident  were  his  commentators  that  his  "In 
ferno"  was  but  an  earthly  hell  after  all,  that  the  poem 
had  no  sooner  appeared  than  they  set  about  tracing  its 
original;  which,  satisfactorily  to  their  own  minds,  they 
finally  discovered.  His  biographer  relates  that  in  the 
year  1304,  among  the  novel  and  diverse  sports  on  an 
occasion  of  public  rejoicing,  one  was,  the  representa 
tion  of  the  Infernal  regions  upon  a  stage  of  boats  on  the 
Arno  at  Florence.  This,  he  adds,  was  the  occasion  of 
the  "Inferno."  Dante  himself  has  remarked,  "I  found 
the  original  of  my  hell  in  the  world  which  we  inhabit." 

Shakespeare  is  justly  styled  the  "poet  of  nature"; 
here  was  the  secret  of  his  popularity.  His  was  no  ideal 

[  HOI 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

standard,  —  man  was  his  hobby.  It  was  one  of  the 
characteristics  of  his  genius  that  it  adapted  itself  to  the 
reality  of  things,  and  was  on  familiar  terms  with  our 
feelings.  His  characters  are  men,  though  historically 
faulty,^  yet  humanly  true;  domesticated  at  once,  they 
are  English  in  all  but  the  name. 

Now  this  characteristic  is  capable  of  being  made 
equally  manifest,  whether  his  genius  be  employed 
upon  an  ancient  or  modern,  foreign  or  domestic  sub 
ject.  He  is  as  much  the  poet  of  nature  in  the  one  case 
as  in  the  other,  —  in  describing  a  Roman  as  a  London 
mob;  in  Antony's  speech  over  the  dead  body  of  Caesar, 
as  in  the  character  of  Falstaff.  Were  Antony  Percy, 
and  Percy  Antony,  — 

"There  were  an  Antony 
Would  ruffle  up  your  spirits/*  — 

and  exert  perhaps  as  magical  an  influence  over  the 
wounds  of  Caesar  and  the  stones  of  Rome  as  did  the 
true  Roman  orator. 

We  are  told  by  one  author  (Pope)  that  "Invention 
is  one  of  the  great  characteristics  of  the  genius  of 
Shakespeare."  Yet  he  asks  — 

"What  can  we  reason  but  from  what  we  know  ?" 

This  separating  Invention  from  Imagination,  as  he 
does,  seems  altogether  unnecessary,  —  as  another  re 
marks,  "  seems  to  be  merely  dividing  the  included  from 
the  including  term." 

It  may  be,  as  Johnson  has  observed,  that  "Shake 
speare's  adherence  to  the  real  story  and  to  Roman 
manners  has  impeded  the  natural  vigor  of  his  genius"; 

[  in  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

he  may  have  been  confined,  but  he  was  no  less  Shake 
speare;  though  chained  he  was  not  tamed.  We  are  not 
to  compare  Shakespeare  chained  with  Shakespeare  at 
liberty,  but  Shakespeare  in  chains  with  others  in  the 
same  condition.  A  caravan  is  made  up  of  animals  as 
distinct  in  their  nature  and  habits  as  their  fellows  of 
the  forest.  I  question,  in  the  next  place,  whether  our 
Poet's  powers  of  Imagination  are  less  manifest  when 
employed  upon  an  ancient  or  foreign  subject.  Take, 
for  instance,  one  of  the  most  powerful  passages  of  his 
"Julius  Csesar,"  beginning  — 

"But  yesterday  the  word  of  Csesar  might 
Have  stood  against  the  world:  now  lies  he  there, 
And  none  so  poor  to  do  him  reverence. 

0  masters!  if  I  were  disposed  to  stir 

Your  hearts  and  minds  to  mutiny  and  rage, 

1  should  do  Brutus  wrong,  and  Cassius  wrong,  — 
Who,  you  all  know,  are  honorable  men,"  etc. 

What  is  there  foreign  in  the  sentiment  here?  To  be 
sure,  the  word  "Caesar"  occurs  thrice,  "Brutus"  and 
"Cassius"  each  once;  but  they  were  no  impediment, 
—  no  more  so,  at  least,  than  "Hotspur"  or  "Mac 
beth"  would  have  been.  The  individual  is  merged  in 
the  man. 

Is  it  answered  that  in  the  latter  case  the  character 
will  be  well  known,  and  therefore  the  poet  will  feel 
more  at  ease,  more  at  home,  and  under  less  restraint? 
I  answer,  this  very  familiarity,  though  a  desideratum 
with  the  biographer,  may  prove  a  hindrance  to  the 
poet;  facts  are  so  many  guideboards,  confining  him  to 
a  beaten  track  and  leaving  no  room  for  Imagination. 

Some  talk  as  if  this  faculty,  wearied  by  a  flight  to  so 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

distant  a  scene,  would  be  unable  to  exhibit  its  accus 
tomed  fertility  and  vigor:  or  among  so  many  strange 
scenes  and  faces,  being  overcome  by  feelings  of  home 
sickness  and  loneliness,  would  lose  a  great  portion  of 
its  energy  and  creative  power.  But  this  objection  is 
far  from  applying  to  Shakespeare.  He  was,  as  we  say, 
never  less  alone  than  when  alone.  Fortunately,  his 
familiarity  with  Roman  history  was  not  so  remarkable 
as  to  multiply  guideboards  to  a  troublesome  degree;  or 
supersede  the  necessity  of  his  judging  for  himself,  or 
hazarding  a  conjecture  now  and  then.  Shakespeare  is 
Shakespeare,  whether  at  home  or  abroad. 

This  is  what  in  the  dialect  of  Harvard  was 
called  a  "  forensic/' — implying  a  discussion  in 
which  the  student  took  sides  and  argued  a  case; 
and  though  the  questions  offered  were  frequently 
trivial  or  fantastic,  they  would  serve,  as  in  this 
example,  to  bring  out  the  subtlety  and  love  of 
contradiction  which  mingled  with  Thoreau's  clear, 
analytic  judgment  and  strong  moral  sense.  It 
is  perhaps  the  longest  essay  in  which  he  considered 
Shakespeare,  then,  as  now,  a  topic  for  many  es 
says,  and  a  favorite  theme  of  the  Concord  au 
thors.  Thoreau  had  also  begun  to  read  Italian, 
and  had  strayed  into  Dante,  though  his  favorite 
poet  then  was  Tasso. 

The  frequent  quotations  from  Goldsmith  and 
Johnson  show  how  completely  the  English  liter- 

[113] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

ature  of  the  eighteenth  century  was  mastered  by 
New  England;  which  was  so  little  acquainted  with 
German  books  that  neither  John  Adams  nor  Jef 
ferson,  by  1820,  knew  Goethe  even  by  name, 
though  John  Quincy  Adams  had  become  so  well 
read  in  German  that,  a  dozen  years  earlier,  he 
had  versified  in  English  the  whole  of  Wieland's 
"Oberon."  A  few  young  Americans  —  Edward 
Everett,  George  Bancroft,  George  Ticknor,  Wil 
liam  Emerson,  George  Calvert,  etc.  —  had  made 
German  literature  known  at  Harvard  College  and 
the  Round  Hill  School;  and  Carlyle  and  young 
Henry  Hedge  and  George  Ripley  had  made  the 
study  of  German  attractive  to  Mrs.  Ripley  and 
Henry  Thoreau  in  Waltham  and  Concord. 

Before  the  forensic  just  noticed  was  written, 
Thoreau  had  more  concisely  considered  Imagina 
tion  in  its  moral  aspect  as  worthy  or  unworthy 
of  special  culture;  and  had  dwelt  on  the  story-mak 
ing  faculty,  the  "Lust  zu  fabuliren"  so  dear  to 
the  childhood  of  men  and  of  the  race.  Two  rather 
fragmentary  essays  follow. 

XII.  Imagination  as  an  Element  of  Happiness 

"Whether  the  Cultivation  of  the  Imagination  conduces 

to  the  Happiness  of  the  Individual?" 
Man  is  an  intellectual  being.  Without  the  least  hesi- 
[  114] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

tation,  as  well  as  from  the  most  careful  investigation 
(if  indeed  there  be  any  question  about  it),  we  are  led  to 
conclude  that  the  Intellect  is  to  be  cultivated.  Indeed, 
the  doubt,  if  any  exist,  cannot  be  solved  without  the 
exercise,  and  consequently  the  cultivation  of  the  intel 
lectual  faculties.  We  could  not,  if  we  would,  put  a  stop 
entirely  and  effectually,  to  their  gradual  expansion  and 
development,  without  offering  violence  to  the  organs 
through  which  they  act. 

It  is  obviously  inconsistent  with  the  design  of  the 
Creator,  as  observed  in  the  works  of  creation,  that 
Man,  made  capable  of  comprehending  the  object  of  his 
existence,  and  of  understanding  the  relation  in  which 
he  stands  to  its  Author,  should  so  far  neglect  the  cul 
ture  of  his  peculiar  faculties,  as  to  lose  his  peculiar 
privileges  as  a  free  agent.  The  wisdom  of  the  Creator 
has  ever  been  the  theme  of  the  Christian's  admiration 
and  praise;  shall  then  wisdom  for  a  man's  self  be  re 
jected?  In  supplying  his  physical  wants  Man  but 
obeys  the  dictates  of  Nature's  law;  shall  the  intel 
lectual  be  neglected?  If  Reason  was  given  us  for  any 
one  purpose  more  than  another,  it  was  that  we  might 
so  regulate  our  conduct  as  to  ensure  our  eternal  happi 
ness.  The  cultivation  of  the  mind,  then,  is  conducive 
to  our  happiness.  But  this  consists  in  the  cultivation 
of  its  several  faculties. 

What  we  call  the  Imagination  is  one  of  these  facul 
ties  ;  hence  does  its  culture  conduce  in  a  measure  to  the 
happiness  of  the  individual.  The  Imagination,  says 
Dugald  Stewart,  "is  the  power  that  gives  birth  to  the 
productions  of  the  poet  and  the  painter";  whose  prov- 

[US] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

ince  it  is,  says  another,  "to  select  the  parts  of  different 
conceptions,  or  objects  of  memory,  to  form  a  whole 
more  pleasing,  more  terrible,  or  more  awful  than  has 
ever  been  presented  in  the  ordinary  course  of  nature," 
—  a  power  by  no  means  peculiar  to  the  poet  or  the 
painter. 

Whatever  the  senses  perceive  or  the  mind  takes 
cognizance  of,  affords  food  for  the  Imagination.  In 
whatever  situation  a  man  may  be  placed,  to  whatever 
straits  he  may  be  reduced,  this  faculty  is  ever  busy. 
Its  province  is  unbounded,  its  flights  are  not  confined 
to  space;  the  past  and  the  future,  time  and  eternity  all 
come  within  the  sphere  of  its  range.  This  power,  al 
most  coeval  with  Reason  itself,  is  a  fruitful  source  of 
terror  to  the  child.  This  it  is  that  suggests  to  his  mind 
the  idea  of  an  invisible  monster,  lying  in  wait  to  carry 
him  off,  in  the  obscurity  of  the  night.  Whether  ac 
quired  or  not,  it  is  obviously  susceptible  of  a  high 
degree  of  cultivation.  This  fact  goes  to  prove  what 
was  already  so  evident.  Indeed,  there  are  the  same 
objections  to  the  cultivation  of  any  other  faculty  of 
the  intellect  as  to  the  one  in  question. 

The  mind  itself  should  receive  only  its  due  share  of 
attention;  but  should  the  physical  powers  be  neglected, 
the  fault  would  rather  be  a  negative  than  a  positive 
one.  So,  too,  the  mind  alone  should  be  well-balanced; 
no  one  power  should  be  cultivated  to  the  neglect  of 
any  power.  It  is  no  objection  to  the  study  of  Mathe 
matics  to  say  that  an  exclusive  devotion  to  that  branch 
is  sure  to  render  one  unfit  for  the  duties  of  life.  Prop 
erly  speaking,  a  faculty  of  the  mind  cannot  be  culti- 

[H6] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

vated  to  excess,  —  the  fault  lies  in  the  neglect  of  some 
other  power.  The  arm  of  the  smith  is  not  too  strong 
for  his  body;  he  would  be  wrong  to  lay  aside  the  ham 
mer  and  relax  the  muscles,  lest  the  right  arm  outstrip 
the  left. 

There  is  one  other  consideration  which  seems  to 
affect  this  question.  Unlike  most  other  pleasures, 
those  of  the  Imagination  are  not  momentary  and 
evanescent;  its  powers  are  rather  increased  than  worn 
out  by  exercise.  The  old,  not  less  than  the  young,  find 
their  supreme  delight  in  the  building  of  cob-houses  and 
air-castles  out  of  these  fragments  of  different  concep 
tions.  It  is  not  so  with  the  pleasures  of  sense. 


XIII.  The  Story-Telling  Faculty 

"The  Love  of  Stories,  real  or  fabulous,  in  Young  and 
Old;  account  for  it,  and  show  what  good  use  it 
may  serve." 

One  thing  can  hardly  be  called  more  curious  than 
another;  yet  all  are  not  equally  the  objects  of  our 
curiosity.  The  earth  we  tread  upon  is  as  curious  as 
the  stars  we  gaze  at.  "To  the  thinking  mind,"  says 
Irving,  "the  whole  world  is  enveloped  in  mystery,  and 
everything  is  full  of  type  and  portent."  We  are  curi 
ously  and  wonderfully  made,  —  yet  how  few,  com 
paratively,  see  anything  to  admire  in  the  structure 
of  their  own  bodies!  How  then  shall  we  account  for 
this  indifference  to  what  is  common,  this  appetite 
for  the  novel? 

By  accident,  through  the  medium  of  the  senses 

[  117] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

first,  the  child  is  made  acquainted  with  some  new 
truth.  The  acquisition  of  Knowledge  (taking  the 
term  in  its  widest  sense)  he  finds  is  attended  in  this 
first  instance,  by  a  pleasurable  emotion.  The  wisdom 
of  this  provision  is  obvious.  Having  experienced  the 
pleasure,  and  noted,  whether  voluntarily  or  other 
wise,  the  cause,  he  delights  to  examine  whatever  new 
objects  may  fall  in  his  way:  and  thus  familiar  things, 
or  such  as  he  has  already  taken  notice  of,  come  to 
lose  their  attractions,  and  grow  in  a  measure  disgust 
ing  to  him.  Hence  that  love  of  novelty,  that  passion 
for  what  is  strange,  or,  as  the  phrase  goes,  remarkable, 
whose  influence  may  be  discerned  in  almost  every 
act  of  our  lives.  But  it  by  no  means  follows  that  those 
topics  most  replete  with  instruction  will  afford  us  the 
greatest  pleasure. 

The  love  of  novelty  grows  with  our  growth.  Not 
satisfied  with  the  world  around  us,  we  delight  to  revel 
in  a  world  of  our  own  creation.  The  ideas  afforded  by 
sensation  and  reflection  are  seized  upon  with  avidity 
by  the  Imagination,  and  so  combined  and  arranged 
as  to  form  new  wholes  of  surpassing  beauty,  awful- 
ness  or  sublimity,  —  as  the  case  may  be.  It  is  in  the 
exercise  of  this  divine  faculty  that  Age  finds  its  readi 
est  solace,  and  Youth  its  supreme  delight.  A  mutual 
interchange  of  imaginings  serves  not  a  little  to  enlarge 
the  field  of  our  enjoyment.  Tired  of  our  own  crea 
tions;  too  indolent  to  rear  our  own  castles,  the  Tale 
well  told,  — 

"  with  many  a  winding  bout 
Of  linked  sweetness  long  drawn  out,"  — 

[  H8] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

casts  a  luxurious,  a  delicious  twilight  over  the  rugged 
scenes  of  life,  —  reconciles  us  to  the  world,  to  our 
friends,  —  ourselves. 

As  that  appetite  is  insatiable,  so  are  the  sources 
whence  it  may  be  gratified  inexhaustible.  When 
youth  has  ripened  into  manhood,  and  Care  has 
stamped  the  brow,  —  though  the  lay  may  have  lost 
its  charm,  which  tells  of  curious  things,  — 

How  wise  men  three  of  Gotham,  in  a  bowl 

Did  venture  out  to  sea,  — 

And  darkly  hints  their  awful  fate;  — 

though  this  be  an  old  story,1  the  page  of  History  is 
never  closed,  the  Castalian  Spring  is  never  dry.  The 
volume  of  Nature  is  ever  open;  the  story  of  the  world 
never  ceases  to  interest.  The  child,  enchanted  by  the 
melodies  of  Mother  Goose,  —  the  scholar  pondering 
"  the  Tale  of  Troy  Divine,"  and  the  historian  breath 
ing  the  atmosphere  of  past  ages,  —  all  manifest  the 
same  passion,  are  alike  the  creatures  of  curiosity. 

In  fine,  the  same  passion  for  the  novel  (somewhat 
modified,  to  be  sure)  that  is  manifested  in  our  early 
days,  leads  us  in  after-life,  when  the  sprightliness 
and  credulity  of  youth  have  given  way  to  the  reserve 
and  skepticism  of  manhood  —  to  the  more  serious, 
though  scarcely  less  wonderful  annals  of  the  world. 

Whatever  is  said  or  done,  seen  or  heard,  —  is  in 
any  way  taken  cognizance  of  by  the  senses  or  the 
understanding,  —  produces  its  effect,  contributes  its 
mite,  to  the  formation  of  the  character.  Every  sen 
tence  that  is  framed,  every  word  that  is  uttered,  is 
1  See  the  like  thought  on  p.  59. 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

framed  or  uttered,  for  good  or  for  evil;  nothing  is  lost. 
No  auldwife's  story  is  so  trivial  or  so  barren  as  to  lack 
a  moral;  nor  is  the  impression  it  makes  as  transitory 
as  "the  tale  that  is  told." 

These  trifling  but  oft-recurring  contributions  are, 
so  to  speak,  the  principles  of  our  principles,  —  the 
underpropping  of  that  moral  edifice  whose  spire  pierces 
the  clouds,  and  points  the  way  to  that  glorious  Elysium 
beyond,  the  blessed  habitation  of  the  Immortals. 

The  love  of  Stories  and  of  story-telling  cherishes 
a  purity  of  heart,  a  frankness  and  candor  of  disposi 
tion,  a  respect  for  what  is  generous  and  elevated,  — 
a  contempt  for  what  is  mean  and  dishonorable,  —  a 
proper  regard  for  and  independence  of  the  petty  trials 
of  life;  and  tends  to  multiply  merry  companions  and 
never-failing  friends. 

The  fluency  and  enthusiasm  of  this  essay  recalls 
to  mind  that  accurate  description  by  Channing 
of  Thoreau's  personality,  in  which  he  specifies:  — 

Eyes  expressive  of  all  shades  of  feeling,  but  never 
weak  or  near-sighted;  the  forehead,  not  unusually 
broad  or  high,  full  of  concentrated  energy  and  pur 
pose;  the  mouth  with  prominent  lips,  pursed  up  with 
meaning  and  thought  when  silent;  and  giving  out 
when  open  a  stream  of  the  most  varied  and  unusual  and 
instructive  sayings. 

Such  also  was  the  nature  of  his  writings  —  va 
ried,  unusual,  and  instructive,  beyond  those  of 
most  men  of  his  time,  and  placing  him  in  the  same 

[  120] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

rank  with  Carlyle,  Emerson,  and  Whitman  for 
originality.  How  early  these  traits  showed  them 
selves  in  his  youthful  essays  will  be  seen  in  this 
volume,  as  distinctly,  if  not  so  constantly,  as  in 
his  own  later  writings;  comparatively  few  of  which 
had  the  advantage  of  his  own  editing.  He  began 
to  edit  early,  by  tearing  out  and  destroying  much 
that  he  had  carefully  composed;  but  final  editing 
he  mainly  missed. 


CHAPTER  IV 

COLLEGE  ESSAYS  (concluded) 

Literary  and  Moral,  Including  the  Minor  Morals 
IT  is  thus  far  evident  that  Henry  Thoreau,  from 
his  earliest  years,  had  been  interested  in  literature, 
and  had  read  copiously,  with  such  access  to  books 
as  the  small  libraries  in  a  small  town  like  Concord, 
eighty  years  ago,  had  been  able  to  furnish.  In 
Harvard  College  he  found  a  larger  library,  though 
it  was  not  to  be  compared  with  such  as  now  exist 
in  our  universities  and  cities.  The  early  American 
students  at  German  universities  had  caused  the 
introduction  in  the  Eastern  States  of  the  better 
specimens  of  German  literature;  and  exiles  from 
Germany  and  from  Italy  had  imparted  a  taste  for 
the  older  literatures  of  the  Continental  countries. 
Henry  as  a  youth  profited  by  this;  but  still  more 
by  the  reviving  taste  for  the  Elizabethan  poetry 
and  drama,  and  the  activity  of  the  Scotch  and  Irish 
writers  of  the  eighteenth  and  nineteenth  centu 
ries.  He  used  such  libraries  as  he  found,  not  to 
cram  for  college  rank,  or  for  prizes  at  school  or 
university,  —  but  because  of  his  early  and  con 
stant  devotion  to  general  literature  in  its  many 

[18*] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

branches.  An  essay  written  by  him  in  March, 
1837,  will  indicate  how  wide  and  general  his 
reading  had  become  before  he  was  twenty. 

XIV.  Books  and  their  Titles 

"Name  and  speak  of  Titles  of  Books,  either  as  perti 
nent  to  their  Matter,  or  merely  Ingenious  and 
Attractive." 

When  at  length,  after  infinite  toil  and  anxiety,  an 
author  has  fairly  completed  his  work,  the  next,  and 
by  far  the  most  important  concern  that  demands  his 
attention  is  the  christening.  He  is  about  to  send  forth 
his  bantling  to  seek  its  fortune  in  the  world;  and  he 
feels  a  kind  of  parental  interest  in  its  welfare,  prompt 
ing  him  to  look  about  for  some  expressive  and  euphonic 
Title,  which  at  least  will  secure  it  a  civil  treatment 
from  mankind,  and  may  perchance  serve  as  an  intro 
duction  to  their  sincere  esteem  and  regard. 

A  Title  may  either  be  characteristic,  consisting 
of  a  single  expressive  word  or  pithy  sentence,  or  in 
genious  and  amusing,  so  as  to  catch  the  fancy  or 
excite  the  curiosity.  Some  (such  as  "Ivanhoe,"  for 
instance,)  although  familiarity  with  its  contents  may 
impart  to  them  an  interest  not  their  own,  or  other 
associations  render  them  pleasing  to  the  ear,  —  seem 
to  have  been  adopted  as  merely  or  chiefly  distinctive; 
without  any  attempt  to  enlighten  the  reader  upon  the 
nature  of  the  subject,  or  to  deceive  him  into  a  perusal 
of  the  volume.  In  the  infancy  of  a  nation's  litera 
ture,  when  books,  like  angel's  visits,  are  "few  and  far 

[123J 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

between,"  their  very  rarity  seems  to  require  that  they 
should  be  distinguished  by  titles  equally  rare;  and  not 
unusually  does  it  happen  that  these  prove  so  exceed 
ingly  attractive  as  to  cast  quite  into  the  shade  the 
humble  volume  which  they  were  intended  to  usher  into 
notice. 

The  character  of  the  contents  is  often  quite  over 
looked  in  the  desire  to  make  a  favorable  first  impres 
sion;  and  the  author's  whole  ingenuity  is  exerted  in 
the  framing  of  some  fanciful  or  dignified  Title,  which 
will  at  once  recommend  his  book  to  the  favor  of  the 
reading  public.  As  some  fond  parents  in  the  lower 
walks  of  life  are  accustomed  to  ransack  the  long 
list  of  departed  worthies  for  sonorous  and  well-tried 
names;  or  from  the  cast-off  spoils  of  the  novel-heroine 
seek  to  swell  the  scanty  portion  which  Fortune  has 
allotted  to  their  offspring. 

What  can  be  more  alluring  than  the  following 
tempting  and  somewhat  luxurious  display  of  verbal 
delicacies? 

"Paradise  of  Dainty  Devices/' 

What  may  be  the  nature  of  these  "Dainty  Devices" 
is  left  to  be  imagined  by  the  reader,  —  it  being  safer 
to  leave  him  to  his  own  vague  conjectures  than  to 
tell  the  plain  truth  at  once.  Robert  Langland,  a  con 
temporary  of  Chaucer,  taught  the  fundamental  doc 
trines  of  Christianity  in  a  voluminous  poetical  work, 
entitled  "Pierce  the  Ploughman's  Crede."  One  Wil 
liam  is  overtaken  by  sleep  among  the  Malvern  Hills, 
and  in  a  dream  beholds  the  different  classes  of  society 
pursuing  their  respective  avocations  upon  a  spacious 

[124] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

plain  before  him.  He  is  addressed  by  various  alle 
gorical  personages,  among  whom  True  Religion  and 
Reason  are  the  most  conspicuous.  By  Piers  Plow 
man  is  sometimes  meant  the  "true  and  universal 
Church";  at  others  he  is  a  mysterious  personage  who 
undertakes  to  guide  mankind  to  the  abode  of  Truth, 

—  declaring  that  he  has  himself  long  been  Truth's 
faithful  and  devoted  follower. 

Where  the  uninitiated  reader  would  expect  a  rude 
pastoral  or  rural  ditty,  or  perhaps  an  essay  on  hus 
bandry,  nothing  is  found  to  repay  him  for  the  trouble 
of  a  perusal  but  obscure  and  interminable  allegories, 

"In  notes  with  many  a  winding  bout 
Of  linked  dulness  long  drawn  out." 

Southwell's  "  Funeral  Tears "  is  another  title  of 
the  same  description.  The  following  gives  one  a  slight 
insight  into  the  subject,  "Abuses  Stript  and  Whipt" 

—  being  a  volume  of  satirical  essays;  in  later  times, 
"Heliconia,"  a  selection  of  English  poetry  of  the 
Elizabethan  age,  and  "Archaica,"    a  reprint  of  scarce 
"Old  English  Prose  Tracts,"  by  Sir  Edgerton  Brydges. 
Davy's  "Salmonia,"  which  must  have  puzzled  many, 
is  also  of  this  description.  Our  early  literature  abounds 
in  such  conceited  titles  as  the  following:  "A  Ladder 
of   Perfection,"  "A  Looking-Glass  for  London  and 
England,"  "A  Fan  to  drive  away  Flies,"  and  "Matches 
lighted  by  the  Divine  Fire." 

One  author,  through  an  excess  of  modesty  or 
squeamishness,  calls  a  discourse  upon  the  life  and 
death  of  an  individual,  an  "Epitaph";  another  has 

[125] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

packed  off  a  quarto  with  an  inexplicable  (and  there 
fore  attractive)  title,  —  "Prayse  of  the  Red  Her 
ring."  Our  ancestors  were  fond  of  regarding  their 
works  as  so  many  different  centres,  from  which  di 
verged  rays  of  various  hues,  carrying  light  and  heat 
to  every  quarter,  —  as  choice  repositories  of  learning, 
or  perennial  fountains  of  amusement;  and  therefore, 
overlooking  their  general  character,  gave  them  col 
lective  titles,  taken,  for  the  most  part,  from  the  anal 
ogy  of  matter.  Some  such  have  already  been  men 
tioned.  "Painter's  Palace  of  Pleasure,"  "Temple  of 
Memory,"  "Coryat's  Crudities,"  etc.,  are  other  in 
stances.  We  may  also  add,  "Mirror  for  Magistrates," 
—  a  rather  odd  title  for  a  chronicle  History,  written 
during  the  reign  of  Queen  Mary,  and  embracing  "The 
Lives  and  untimely  Falles  of  unfortunate  Princes 
and  men  of  note,"  from  Brutus  down. 

Not  even  sober  philosophical  and  grammatical 
works  have  escaped  the  absurdity  of  unintelligible 
and  affected  titles.  Home  Tooke's  "Diversions  of 
Purley"  must  have  disappointed  many  a  desultory 
reader  in  search  of  amusement.  The  difficulty  is  not 
removed  by  the  addition  of  the  poetical  expletive, 
"Epea  Pteroenta." 

The  student  has  heard  of  this  celebrated  treatise, 
and  he  feels  a  desire  to  examine  it.  He  has  recourse, 
perhaps,  to  the  catalogue  of  some  library,  which  in 
forms  him  merely  that  John  Home  Tooke  was  the 
author  of  a  book  called  "The  Diversions  of  Purley." 
He  is  somewhat  astonished  that  so  learned  a  philolo 
gist  as  Mr.  Tooke  should  have  condescended  to  dab- 

[  126  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

ble  in  light  literature,  or  have  sacrificed  a  moment  in 
amusements  or  diversions  of  any  kind. 

It  cannot  be  that  he  is  mistaken.  Mr.  Tooke  was 
certainly  the  author  of  the  work  he  is  in  quest  of. 
Perhaps  those  ill-starred  Diversions,  however,  may 
contain  a  biographical  notice  of  their  author,  which 
will  throw  some  light  upon  the  subject.  He  examines 
and  is  undeceived.  Instead  of  a  Dictionary  of  Sports, 
or  a  Panegyric  on  the  Delights  of  Rural  Life,  he  finds 
a  critical  treatise  on  the  English  language,  display 
ing  no  small  degree  of  philological  learning. 

No  people  have  been  more  prone  to  these  extrava 
gances  than  the  Persians.  Mohammad  Ebn  Emir 
Chowand  Shah,  who  flourished  in  1741,  was  the  author 
of  a  voluminous  historical  work  entitled  "Hortus 
Puritatis  in  Historia  Prophetarum,  Regum  et  Chali- 
farum."  A  Persian-Turkish  dictionary  bears  the 
title  of  "  Naamet  Allah"  or  "Delight  of  Gods."  "The 
Gulistan,"  or  "Flower-Garden,"  a  collection  of  moral 
fables  and  apophthegms,  by  Sheikh  Sadi  of  Shiraz, 
being  written  in  an  excessively  florid  style,  may  aptly 
enough  be  compared  to  a  garden  of  flowers,  or  a  parcel 
of  nosegays.  We  next  come  upon  the  ground  of  the 
"Lebtarik  or  Marrow  of  History,"  by  the  immortal 
(so  far  as  his  name  is  concerned)  Al  Emir  Yahia  Ebn 
Abdolatif  al  Kaswini.  Abu  Said  wrote  a  universal 
history  from  Adam  to  his  own  time,  under  the  title 
of  a  "Historical  Pearl  Necklace." 

Revolutions  have  not  been  confined  to  political 
institutions  and  forms  of  government;  not  even  old 
Books  nor  old  Clothes  have  escaped  the  all-grasping 

[  127] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

hand  of  reform.  Men  have  learned  that  "All  is  not 
gold  that  glisters."  Books  have  cast  off  their  gaudy 
and  cumbrous  court  dresses,  and  appear,  in  these 
days,  in  a  plain  Republican  garb.  The  works  of  the 
philosopher,  the  poet  and  the  statesman  carry  no 
recommendation  upon  their  backs;  nor  does  a  dis 
couraging  array  of  clasps  compel  the  faint-hearted 
reader  to  rely  upon  outward  appearances.  Indeed 
their  Titles,  should  a  perusal  warrant  it,  are  con 
cealed  by  an  everyday  dress  of  paper;  while  their  con 
tents  are  equally  accessible  to  all.  It  is  not  a  little 
remarkable  that  so  few  really  valuable  works  have 
anything  to  recommend  them  in  their  externals. 

Here  we  come  upon  the  first  indication  of  that 
interest  in  Persian  and  Oriental  literature  which 
for  years  was  so  noticeable  in  the  writings  of  Tho- 
reau,  as  in  those  of  Emerson.  Quite  possibly  Emer 
son  had  inspired  this  taste  in  his  young  townsman, 
whom  he  in  this  year  began  to  know  as  a  keeper  of 
Journals  and  a  thinker  of  thoughts.  The  anec 
dote  is  familiar,  and  I  had  it  from  more  than  one 
authority,  but  I  will  relate  it  as  Emerson  himself 
gave  it  to  me,  in  one  of  those  many  conversations 
in  which  Thoreau  was  the  topic. 

My  first  intimacy  with  Henry  began  after  Jus  grad 
uation  in  1837.  Mrs.  Brown,  Mrs.  Emerson's  sister 
from  Plymouth,  then  boarded  with  Mrs.  Thoreau 
and  her  children  in  the  Parkman  house,  where  the 

F  128  1 


LUCY  C.  (JACKSON)   BROWN 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

Library  now  stands,  and  saw  the  young  people  every 
day.  She  would  bring  me  verses  of  Henry's, —  the 
"Sic  Vita,"  for  instance,  which  he  had  thrown  into 
Mrs.  Brown's  window,  tied  round  a  bunch  of  violets 
gathered  in  his  walk,  —  and  once  a  passage  out  of 
his  Journal,  which  he  had  read  to  Sophia,  who  spoke 
of  it  to  Mrs.  Brown  as  resembling  a  passage  in  one  of 
my  Concord  lectures.  He  always  looked  forward  to 
authorship  as  his  work  in  life,  and  fitted  himself  for 
that.  Finding  he  could  write  prose  so  well,  —  and  he 
talked  equally  well,  —  he  soon  gave  up  much  verse- 
writing,  in  which  he  was  not  patient  enough  to  make 
his  lines  smooth  and  flowing. 

Thoreau's  own  opinion  was  not  exactly  the 
same  on  that  point.  He  told  me  in  his  last  illness 
that  he  had  destroyed  many  of  his  early  verses 
because  Emerson  criticised  them;  this  he  had  since 
regretted,  for  perhaps  they  were  better  than  his 
friend  had  thought  them.  Some  of  these  lost 
verses  seem  to  have  been  preserved  by  friends  to 
whom  he  had  given  them  in  their  early  forms;  and 
in  different  connections  from  those  in  which  he 
afterwards  preserved  stanzas  that  he  thought  good 
enough  to  print.  I  shall  have  more  to  say  on  this 
matter  of  verse-writing,  when  I  come  to  speak 
of  his  published  verses,  —  many  of  which  Emer 
son  would  have  withheld  from  publication. 

It  may  be  remarked,  in  passing,  that  the  Arabic 
[  129  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

or  Persian  custom  of  styling  a  collection  of  short, 
serious  pieces  a  "Flower-Garden"  has  its  example 
in  Greek  literature,  though  perhaps  borrowed 
from  the  Semitic  races.  The  famous  Greek  An 
thology  was  meant  to  be  a  flower-garland  of 
verses;  and  it  began  with  a  small  collection  made 
by  Meleager  of  Galilee;  and  that  monk  of  the 
Jordan  Valley,  John  Moschus,  who  collected  ten 
score  of  monkish  legends  in  the  seventh  Christian 
century,  called  his  quaint  prose  anthology  a 
" Leimonarion"  or  "Flowery  Meadow,"  —  in 
Latin,  "Pratum  Spirituale";  a  work  as  popular 
before  A.D.  1200,  as  the  "Fioretti"  of  St.  Francis 
were  after  that  date.  Thoreau  would  have  re 
joiced  in  John  Moschus,  if  he  had  but  known 
him;  and  so  would  Emerson;  they  got  no  nearer 
to  him  than  to  Synesius,  who  is  one  of  the  char 
acters  in  one  of  John's  folk-tales  of  the  fifth 
Christian  century. 

A  year  before  the  essay  last  given  (March, 
1836)  Thoreau  produced  and  preserved  an  essay 
on  — 

XV.  American  Literature 

"Advantages  and  Disadvantages  of  Foreign  Influence 

on  American  Literature." 

The  nations  of  the  Old  World  have  each  a  litera 
ture  peculiarly  its  own.  Theirs  is  the  growth  of  cen- 

[  130] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

turies;  successive  ages  have  contributed  to  form  its 
character  and  mould  its  features.  They  may  be  said 
to  have  grown  up  and  become  matured;  the  early 
centuries  of  our  Era  presided  over  their  infancy;  and 
in  some  instances  their  origins  may  be  traced  back 
far  into  the  fabulous  ages  that  precede  the  foundation 
of  Rome. 

Spain  is  the  land  of  Romance;  the  character  of  her 
literature  may  be  seen  in  that  of  almost  every  cen 
tury  of  her  history;  her  youth  was  passed  in  deeds  of 
chivalry,  or  dozed  away  in  the  luxurious  halls  of  the 
Alhambra.  The  taste  for  knight-errantry,  for  adven 
ture  and  song,  which  forms  the  characteristics  of  her 
maturer  years,  is  but  a  spice  of  the  Moorish  charac 
ter.  France  has  had  her  troubadours;  and  her  vintager 
still  sings  his  evening  hymn.  The  advancement  of 
her  literary  interests  was  made  a  public  concern  as 
early  as  1634,  when  Cardinal  de  Richelieu,  the  founder 
of  the  French  Academy,  reigned  with  despotic  sway, 
not  only  over  the  King,  court  and  people,  but  also 
over  the  language. 

We  of  New  England  are  a  peculiar  people:  we  whis 
tle,  to  be  sure,  our  national  tune;  but  the  character  of 
our  literature  is  not  yet  established.  Ours  is  still  in 
the  gristle,  and  is  yet  receiving  those  impressions  from 
the  parent  literature  of  the  mother-country  which  are 
to  mould  its  character.  Utility  is  the  Dallying  word 
with  us;  we  are  a  nation  of  speculators,  stockholders 
and  money-changers.  We  do  everything  by  steam, 
because  it  is  most  expeditious,  and  cheapest  in  the 
long  run;  we  are  continually  racking  our  brains  to 

[  131  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

invent  a  quicker  way  or  a  cheaper  method  of  doing 
this  or  that.  The  question  with  us  is,  whether  a  book 
will  take,  —  will  sell  well;  not  whether  it  is  worth 
taking  or  worth  selling.  The  purchaser  asks  the  price, 
—  looks  to  the  binding,  the  paper  or  the  plates,  — 
without  learning  the  contents.  The  Press  is  daily  send 
ing  forth  its  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands;  for  the 
publisher  says  't  is  profitable. 

To  judge  from  appearances  rather  than  facts,  to 
mistake  the  profitable  for  the  useful,  are  errors  inci 
dent  to  youth;  but  we  are  fast  hardening  into  the 
bone  of  manhood.  Our  literature,  though  now  de 
pendant,  in  some  measure,  on  that  of  the  mother- 
country,  must  soon  go  alone.  Its  future  eminence 
must  depend  upon  its  bringing-up;  upon  the  impres 
sions  it  now  receives,  and  the  principles  it  imbibes: 
how  important,  then,  that  these  impressions  and 
these  principles  be  of  a  manly  and  independent  char 
acter! 

We  are,  as  it  were,  but  colonies.  True,  we  have  de 
clared  our  independence,  and  gained  our  liberty;  but 
we  have  dissolved  only  the  political  bonds  which  con 
nected  us  with  Great  Britain:  though  we  have  re 
jected  her  tea,  she  still  supplies  us  with  food  for  the 
mind.  Milton  and  Shakespeare,  Cowper  and  Johnson, 
with  their  kindred  spirits,  have  done  and  are  still  doing 
for  us  as  much  for  the  advancement  of  literature  and 
the  establishment  of  a  pure  and  nervous  language, 
on  this  side,  as  on  the  other  side  of  the  water.  They 
are  as  much  venerated,  and  their  works  are  as  highly 
prized  by  us  as  by  our  English  brethren:  and  who 

[  132  ] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

will  say  that  the  influence  they  have  exerted  has  been 
prejudicial  to  our  literary  interests? 

Our  national  pride  has  been  roused  by  the  perusal 
of  sundry  journals  and  books  of  travel,  purporting  to 
contain  faithful  descriptions  of  men  and  manners  in 
America:  the  remarks  of  English  and  Scotch  reviewers 
have,  in  various  instances,  induced  us  to  be  more 
careful  in  the  use  of  language,  and  to  discard  much 
that  is  superfluous  or  provincial  in  our  vocabulary. 
We  are  not  totally  indifferent  with  regard  to  the  no 
tice  which  the  soi-disant  critics  of  Europe  have  con 
descended  to  take  of  our  literature:  and  though  we 
may  affect  to  overlook  their  cutting  remarks,  or  re 
gard  them  but  as  the  sallies  of  envy  and  calumny; 
still  we  feel  that  they  are  not  entirely  without  foun 
dation.  The  more  cuffs  and  hard  knocks  we  sustain, 
the  more  robust  and  manly  we  grow.  Each  successive 
defeat  afforded  the  Carthaginians  new  lessons  in  the 
art  of  war,  till  at  length  Rome  herself  trembled  at 
their  progress. 

Our  respect  for  what  is  foreign,  on  the  other  hand, 
has  a  tendency  to  render  us  blind  to  native  merit, 
and  lead  us  into  a  servile  adoration  of  imported  genius. 
We  afford  but  little  encouragement  to  that  which  is  of 
domestic  manufacture,  but  prefer  to  send  out  our  raw 
material,  that  it  may  pass  through  a  foreign  mill. 
The  aspirant  for  fame  must  breathe  the  atmosphere 
of  foreign  parts,  and  learn  to  talk  about  things  which 
the  homebred  student  never  dreamed  of,  if  he  would 
have  his  talents  appreciated,  or  his  opinion  regarded 
by  his  countrymen.  Then  will  they  dwell  on  every 

[133] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

word  he  utters,  watch  the  cut  of  his  coat,  the  cock  of 
his  hat,  —  ape  his  pronunciation  and  manners,  and 
perhaps  honor  him  with  a  public  dinner. 

Ours  are  authors  of  the  day;  they  bid  fair  to  outlive 
their  works:  they  are  too  fashionable  to  write  for 
posterity:  what  the  public  seizes  on  with  avidity  to 
day,  ceases  to  interest  it  to-morrow,  when  the  charm 
of  novelty  has  worn  off.  Particular  styles  and  sub 
jects  have  each  in  their  turn  engaged  the  attention 
of  the  literati. 

How  much  ink  has  been  shed,  how  much  paper 
wasted,  in  imitations  of  Ossian,  while  the  productions 
of  Macpherson  lie  neglected  on  our  shelves!  The  dev 
otee  of  literary  fashion  is  no  stranger  to  our  shores. 
True,  there  are  some  amongst  us  who  can  contem 
plate  the  babbling  brook  without  (in  imagination) 
polluting  its  waters  with  a  mill-wheel;  but  even  they 
are  prone  to  sing  of  skylarks  and  nightingales,  perched 
on  hedges,  to  the  neglect  of  the  homely  robin-red 
breast,  and  the  straggling  rail-fence  of  their  own  na 
tive  land. 

Some  triteness  of  phrase  apart,  it  would  be  hard 
for  an  American  eighty  years  later  to  give  a  sounder 
verdict  than  this  one,  which  was  rendered  by  a 
youth  not  yet  nineteen,  in  the  days  when  Irving, 
Cooper,  Bryant,  and  the  travelled  exquisites 
Longfellow  and  Willis  were  our  popular  authors; 
with  Bancroft  and  the  Everetts,  and  a  few  clergy 
men  in  the  background,  and  Hawthorne  and  Poe 

[134] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

not  yet  attracting  notice.  With  Emerson's  "Na 
ture,"  issued  in  a  small  edition  later  in  the  year 
1836,  the  "North  American  Review"  dealing 
with  criticism,  and  Clay  and  Webster  for  orators, 
the  United  States  faced  a  frowning  world,  and 
endured  the  assaults  of  Colonel  Hamilton,  Words 
worth's  English  neighbor,  and  Mrs.  Trollope,  the 
mother  of  two  good  novelists.  Lowell  and  Holmes 
were  yet  scarcely  known  as  poets;  and  Jefferson 
and  the  Adamses  with  Madison  and  Alexander 
Hamilton  ranked  high  among  political  writers. 
The  Concord  school  of  authors,  along  with  those 
extremes  of  the  literary  class,  Dr.  Channing  and 
the  wayward  Poe,  were  soon  to  declare  boldly  our 
literary  independence  of  England,  making  us 
allies  and  no  longer  colonists. 

It  is  now  time  to  present  some  of  those  youth 
ful  essays  of  Thoreau,  in  which  his  expanding 
experience  and  his  wider  reading  began  to  ex 
hibit  those  more  virile  intellectual  traits  which 
have  long  been  recognized  in  everything  he  pub 
lished,  and  in  the  wealth  of  his  writings  given  to 
the  world  in  the  half -century  since  he  ceased  to 
write.  The  present  essays  were  never  designed 
for  publication,  except  on  that  limited  scale  which 
college  exercises  then  allowed;  when  college  mag 
azines  hardly  existed,  and  prize  essays  seldom 

[  135  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

appeared  in  print.  These  manuscripts  were  pre 
served  by  the  author,  probably  because  he  saw 
in  them  some  fitness  for  survival  —  some  germs 
or  aspects  of  thought,  to  which  he  might  need  to 
recur  in  later  years.  Out  of  less  than  fifty  such 
papers,  which  had  accumulated  during  his  last 
three  years  at  Cambridge,  he  kept  by  him  and 
left  to  his  family  about  thirty;  including  his 
Commencement  Essay,  which  in  its  chirography 
exhibited  the  greatest  care  and  fastidious  neat 
ness  among  some  thousands  of  manuscript  pages 
that  have  passed  under  my  eye,  first  and  last, 
from  his  pen.  He  wrote  every  word  with  those 
untiring  fingers;  he  never  had  an  amanuensis  un 
til  in  the  last  few  weeks  of  his  illness;  and  would 
often  write  the  same  passage  three  and  four  times 
over.  Each  one  of  these  early  essays  —  all  writ 
ten  before  he  was  twenty,  and  the  earliest  ones 
in  the  unformed  handwriting  of  a  boy  —  has 
some  merit,  were  it  only  a  certain  quaintness 
peculiar  to  himself;  while  most  of  them  show  a 
concise  expression  singular  in  one  so  young,  and 
so  ready  with  tongue  or  pen.  Here  is  a  meta 
physical  chapter  which  differs  from  anything  yet 
presented.  Its  date  is  May  5,  1837,  two  months 
before  his  college  residence  ended. 

[  136  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

XVI.  The  Superior  and  the  Common  Man 

"Paley,  in  his  *  Natural  Theology,'  Chap.  23,  speaks 
of  minds  utterly  averse  to  'the  flatness  of  be 
ing  content  with  common  reasons/  and  consid 
ers  the  highest  minds  'most  liable  to  this  repug 
nancy.' 

"See  the  passage,  and  explain  the  moral  or  intel 
lectual  defect." 

Turgot  has  said,  —  "He  that  has  never  doubted  the 
existence  of  Matter,  may  be  assured  he  has  no  apti 
tude  for  metaphysical  inquiries."  It  would  seem  as  if 
doubt  and  uncertainty  grew  with  the  growth  of  the 
intellect,  and  strengthened  with  its  strength.  The 
giant  intellect,  it  is  true,  is  for  a  season  borne  along 
with  the  tide;  the  opinion  and  prejudice  of  the  mass  are 
silently  acquiesced  in;  the  senses  are  for  a  while  the 
supreme  arbiters,  from  whose  decision  there  is  no  ap 
peal.  Mystery  is  yet  afar  off;  it  is  but  a  cloud  in  the 
distance,  whose  shadow,  as  it  flits  across  the  land 
scape,  gives  a  pleasing  variety  to  the  scene.  But  as  the 
perfect  day  approaches,  its  morning  light  discovers  the 
dark  and  straggling  clouds,  which  at  first  skirted  the 
horizon,  assembling  as  at  a  signal,  and  as  they  expand 
and  multiply  rolling  slowly  onward  to  the  zenith;  till 
at  last  the  whole  heavens,  if  we  except  a  faint  glimmer 
ing  in  the  east,  are  overshadowed. 

The  earth  was  once  firm  beneath  the  feet;  but  now 
it  affords  only  a  frail  support,  —  its  solid  surface  is  as 
yielding  and  elastic  as  air.  The  grass  grew  and  the 
water  ran,  —  and  who  so  blind  as  to  question  their 

[137] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

reality?  A  feeling  of  loneliness  comes  over  the  soul,  — 
for  these  things  are  now  of  the  Past. 

This  is  the  season  of  probation;  but  the  time  ap 
proaches,  and  is  now  at  hand,  when  the  glorious  bow 
shall  rise  on  the  lurid  rear  of  the  tempest,  —  the  sun 
laugh  jocundly  abroad,  and 

"Every  bathed  leaf  and  blossom  fair 
Pour  out  its  soul  to  the  delicious  air." 

The  embryo  philosopher  seeks  the  sunny  side  of  the 
hill,  or  the  grateful  coolness  of  the  grove,  —  he  in 
stinctively  bares  his  bosom  to  the  zephyr,  that  he  may, 
with  the  less  inconvenience,  discuss  the  reality  of  out 
ward  existences.  No  proposition  is  so  self-evident  as 
to  escape  his  suspicion,  nor  yet  so  obscure  as  to  with 
stand  his  scrutiny.  He  acknowledges  but  two  distinct 
existences,  Nature  and  Spirit;  all  things  else  which  his 
obstinate  and  self-willed  senses  present  to  him,  are 
plainly,  though  unaccountably  absurd.  He  laughs 
through  his  tears  at  the  very  mention  of  a  mathe 
matical  demonstration.  There  is  a  flatness  about  what 
is  common  that  at  once  excites  his  ridicule  or  disgust. 
He  goes  abroad  into  the  world,  and  hears  men  assert 
and  deny  in  positive  terms,  —  and  he  is  astounded,  he 
is  shocked,  —  he  perceives  no  meaning  in  their  words 
or  their  actions.  He  recognizes  no  axioms,  he  smiles  at 
reason  and  common  sense;  and  sees  truth  only  in  the 
dreams  and  superstitions  of  mankind. 

And  yet,  —  he  but  carries  out  principles  which  men 
practically  admit  every  day  of  their  lives.  Most,  nay, 
all  acknowledge  a  few  mysteries;  some  things,  they 
admit,  are  hard  to  understand,  but  these  are  compara- 

[138] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

tively  few;  and  could  they  but  refer  them  back  one 
link  in  the  chain  of  causes  and  effects  the  difficulty 
would  at  once  be  removed.  Our  philosopher  has  a 
reasonable  respect  for  the  opinions  of  men,  but  this 
respect  has  not  power  to  blind  his  judgment;  taking, 
as  he  does,  an  original  view  of  things,  he  innocently 
confounds  the  manifest  with  the  mysterious.  That 
such  was  the  common  reason  was,  properly  enough,  in 
the  first  place  no  recommendation  with  him,  and  is 
now  a  positive  objection. 

What  is  more  common  than  error?  Some  seeming 
truths  he  has  clung  to,  as  the  strongholds  of  certainty, 
till  a  closer  investigation  induced  mistrust.  His  confi 
dence  in  the  infallibility  of  Reason  is  shaken;  his  very 
existence  becomes  problematical.  He  has  been  sadly 
deceived,  and  experience  has  taught  him  to  doubt,  to 
question  even  the  most  palpable  truths.  He  feels  that 
he  is  not  secure  till  he  has  gone  back  to  their  most 
primitive  elements,  and  taken  a  fresh  and  unprejudiced 
view  of  things.  He  builds  for  himself,  in  fact,  a  new 
world. 

For  the  opinions  of  the  few,  the  persecuted,  the 
dreamers  of  the  world,  he  has  a  peculiar  respect;  he  is 
prepossessed  in  their  favor.  Man  does  not  wantonly 
rend  the  meanest  tie  that  binds  him  to  his  fellows;  he 
would  not  stand  aloof  even  in  his  prejudices,  did  not 
the  stern  demands  of  Truth,  backed  by  conviction, 
require  it.  He  is  ready  enough  to  float  with  the  tide; 
and  when  he  does  stem  the  current  of  popular  opinion, 
sincerity  at  least  must  nerve  his  arm. 

He  has  not  only  the  burden  of  proof,  but  that  of 

[139] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

reproof  to  support.  We  may  call  him  a  fanatic,  an 
enthusiast,  —  but  these  are  titles  of  honor;  they  sig 
nify  the  devotion  and  entire  surrender  of  himself  to  his 
cause.  Where  there  is  sincerity  is  truth  also.  So  far 
as  my  experience  goes,  man  never  seriously  maintained 
an  objectionable  principle,  doctrine  or  theory.  Error 
never  had  a  sincere  defender;  her  disciples  were  never 
enthusiasts.  This  is  strong  language,  I  confess;  but  I 
do  not  rashly  make  use  of  it.  We  are  told  that  "to  err 
is  human,"  but  I  would  rather  call  it  inhuman,  — 
if  I  may  use  the  word  in  that  sense.  I  speak  not 
of  those  errors  that  have  to  do  with  facts  and  occur 
rences,  but  rather,  errors  of  judgment.  Words,  too, 
I  would  regard  as  mere  signs  of  ideas.  That  pas 
sage  in  the  "Vicar  of  Wakefield"  which  Johnson  pro 
nounced  fine,  but  which  Goldsmith  was  wise  enough 
to  strike  out,  previous  to  publication,  must  be  taken 
in  a  very  limited  sense.  "When  I  was  a  young  man," 
he  wrote,  "I  was  perpetually  starting  new  propositions; 
but  I  soon  gave  that  over,  for  I  found  that,  generally, 
what  was  new  was  false." 

At  best,  we  can  but  say  of  a  common  reason,  that 
men  do  not  dispute  it.  True,  they  defend  it  when  at 
tacked,  for  if  they  did  not,  Reason  never  would.  This 
is  well  explained  by  Gray,  when  he  undertook  to  ac 
count  for  the  popularity  of  Shaftesbury;  "Men  are 
very  prone, "  he  says,  "to  believe  what  they  do  not 
understand;  they  will  believe  anything  at  all,  pro 
vided  they  are  under  no  obligation  to  believe  it;  they 
love  to  take  a  new  road,  even  when  that  road  leads 
nowhere." 

[140] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

The  mingling  here  of  poetic  thought  with  para 
doxical  argument  must  have  struck  the  ordinary 
college  professor  with  surprise  and  horror,  per 
haps  a  little  softened  with  amusement.  It  is  a 
good  introduction  to  those  deeper  paradoxes 
with  which  Thoreau  afterwards  startled  and 
stumbled  his  early  readers.  I  ascribe  this  aroused 
and  confused  condition  of  his  mind  to  the  atmos 
phere  of  Transcendentalism  then  beginning  to 
encircle  a  small  part  of  New  England;  and  to 
the  strong  impression  made  on  the  young  idealist 
by  a  few  persons,  about  this  time;  by  Orestes 
Brownson,  for  example,  with  whom  he  had  lived 
for  some  months  the  preceding  winter  in  the  sub 
urban  town  of  Canton,  where  Thoreau  taught  a 
village  school  during  the  long  vacation,  specially 
arranged  for  college  students  to  earn  a  little 
money,  by  teaching  here  or  there.  Garrison,  also, 
whose  anti-slavery  doctrines  Thoreau's  family 
had  accepted  already,  and  Emerson  most  of  all 
were  influences. 

Emerson's  first  book,  "Nature,"  his  young 
townsman  had  read  soon  after  it  came  out  in 
1836.  The  ferment  in  the  mind  of  thoughtful 
youth,  something  like  that  so  passionately  por 
trayed  in  Carlyle's  "Sartor  Resartus,"  must  be 
taken  into  account,  in  explaining  the  mental  state 

[141  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

of  the  contemporaries  of  such  active  agents  in 
putting  old  routine  to  flight,  in  the  years  from 
1833  to  1840.  The  fondness  of  Thoreau  for  a 
joke,  a  quiz,  may  also  be  considered  in  constru 
ing  these  astonishing  phrases. 

The  next  essay,  written  six  weeks  before  that 
which  I  have  cited  and  commented,  may  be 
called  — 

XVII.  The  Sublimity  of  Death 

"The  thunder's  roll,  the  lightning's  flash,  the  billow's 
roar,  the  earthquake  shock,  all  derive  their  dread 
sublimity  from  Death.  Examine  this  theory." 

"  Whatever,"  says  Burke,  "is  fitted  in  any  sort  to 
excite  the  ideas  of  pain  and  danger,  —  that  is  to  say, 
whatever  is  in  any  sort  terrible,  or  is  conversant  about 
terrible  objects,  or  operates  in  a  manner  analogous  to 
terror,  —  is  a  source  of  the  Sublime.  Indeed,  terror  is, 
in  all  cases  whatsoever,  either  more  openly  or  latently, 
the  ruling  principle  of  the  Sublime." 

Hence  Obscurity,  Solitude,  Power,  and  the  like,  so 
far  as  they  are  fitted  to  excite  terror,  are  sources  of  the 
Sublime.  This  is  a  theory  far  more  satisfactory  than 
that  which  we  are  about  to  examine.  Burke  does  not 
make  death  the  source  of  terror,  but  rather  pain,  — 
using  the  word  in  its  broadest  sense. 

Death  itself  is  sublime.  It  has  all  the  attributes  of 
sublimity,  —  Mystery,  Power,  Silence,  —  a  sublimity 
which  no  one  can  resist;  which  may  be  heightened,  but 

[142] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

cannot  be  equalled  by  the  thunder's  roll  or  the  can 
non's  peal.  But  yet,  though  incomparably  more  awful, 
this  is  the  same  sublimity  that  is  ascribed  to  the  tu 
mult  of  the  troubled  ocean,  —  the  same  in  kind, 
though  different  in  degree,  —  depending  for  its  effect 
upon  the  same  principles  of  our  nature,  though  affect 
ing  us  more  powerfully  and  universally.  To  attribute 
the  two  to  different  principles  is  not  only  unphilosoph- 
ical,  but  manifestly  unnecessary. 

We  shrink  with  horror  from  attributing  emotions  so 
exalted  and  unearthly  and,  withal,  so  flattering  to  our 
nature,  to  an  abject  fear  of  death.  We  would  fain 
believe  that  the  immortals,  who  know  no  fear,  nor  ever 
taste  of  death,  can  sympathize  with  us  poor  worldlings 
in  our  reverence  for  the  Sublime;  that  they  listen  to 
the  thunder's  roar,  and  behold  the  lightning's  flash, 
with  emotions  similar  to  our  own.  We  do  believe  it;  we 
have  so  represented  it.  The  sublimity  of  the  conflict 
on  the  plains  of  Heaven,  between  the  rebel  angels  and 
the  Almighty's  loyal  bands,  as  described  by  Milton, 
was  not  lost  upon  the  spirits  engaged  in  it.  Raphael, 
who  recounts  the  particulars  of  the  fight  to  our  fore 
father  Adam,  describes  the  Messiah  as  riding  sublime 
"on  the  wings  of  cherub"  — 

"On  the  crystalline  sky,  in  sapphire  throned, 
Illustrious  far  and  wide." 

Nor  could  he  have  been  entirely  unconscious  of  the 
emotion  in  question,  when  he  compared  the  combat 
between  Satan  and  Michael  to  the  meeting  of  two 
planets;  as  if,  to  use  his  own  expression,  — 

[143] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

"Among  the  constellations  war  were  sprung, 
Two  planets,  rushing  from  aspect  malign 
Of  fiercest  opposition,  in  mid  sky 
Should  combat,  and  their  jarring  spheres  confound." 

Who  can  contemplate  the  hour  of  his  birth,  or  reflect 
on  the  obscurity  and  darkness  from  which  he  then 
emerged  into  a  still  more  mysterious  existence,  without 
being  powerfully  impressed  with  the  idea  of  sublimity? 
Shall  we  derive  this  sublimity  from  death? 

Nay,  further,  —  can  anything  be  conceived  more 
sublime  than  that  second  birth,  the  Resurrection?  It 
is  a  subject  which  we  approach  with  a  kind  of  rever 
ential  awe.  It  has  inspired  the  sublimes t  efforts  of  the 
poet  and  the  painter.  The  trump  which  shall  awake 
the  dead  is  the  creation  of  poetry;  but  (to  follow  out 
the  idea)  will  its  sound  excite  in  us  no  emotion?  or  will 
the  Blessed,  whom  it  shall  summon  to  forsake  the 
mouldering  relics  of  mortality,  and  wing  their  way  to 
brighter  and  happier  worlds,  listen  with  terror  or  indif 
ference?  Shall  he  who  is  acknowledged  while  on  earth 
to  have  a  soul  for  the  sublime  and  beautiful  in  nature, 
hereafter,  when  he  shall  be  all  soul,  lose  this  divine 
privilege?  Shall  we  be  indebted  to  the  body  for  emo 
tions  which  would  adorn  Heaven?  And  yet  there  are 
some  who  will  refer  you  to  the  casting  off  of  this  "mor 
tal  coil"  as  the  beginning  and,  I  may  add,  the  consum 
mation  of  all  this. 

We  can  hardly  say  that  fear  is  a  source  of  the  sub 
lime.  It  may  be  indispensable,  it  is  true,  that  a  certain 
degree  of  awe  should  enter  into  the  admiration  with 
which  we  listen  to  the  billow's  roar  or  the  howling  of 

[  144] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

the  storm.  We  do  not  tremble  with  fright;  but  the 
calm  which  comes  over  the  soul  is  like  that  which  pre 
cedes  the  earthquake.  It  is  a  pleasure  of  the  highest 
kind  to  behold  a  mighty  river,  rolling  impetuously,  and 
as  it  were  blindly  onward,  to  the  edge  of  the  precipice, 
where  for  successive  ages  it  plunges  headlong  to  the 
bottom,  —  roaring  and  foaming  in  its  mad  career,  and 
shaking  the  solid  earth  by  its  fall :  but  it  is  not  joy  that 
we  experience:  it  is  pleasure  mingled  with  reverence, 
and  tempered  with  humility. 

Burke  has  said  that  "terror  is  in  all  cases  whatso 
ever,  either  more  openly  or  latently,  the  ruling  princi 
ple  of  the  sublime."  Alison  says  as  much,  but  Stewart 
advances  a  very  different  theory.  The  first  would 
trace  the  emotion  in  question  to  the  influence  of  pain, 
and  of  terror,  which  is  but  an  apprehension  of  pain.  I 
would  make  that  ruling  principle  an  inherent  respect 
or  reverence,  which  certain  objects  are  fitted  to  com 
mand;  which  reverence,  as  it  is  altogether  distinct 
from,  so  shall  it  outlive  that  terror  to  which  he  refers, 
and  operate  to  exalt  and  distinguish  us,  when  fear 
shall  be  no  more. 

Whatever  is  grand,  wonderful  or  mysterious  may  be 
a  source  of  the  sublime.  Terror  inevitably  injures,  and 
if  excessive  may  entirely  destroy  its  effect.  To  the 
coward  the  cannon's  peal,  the  din  and  confusion  of  the 
fight,  are  not  sublime,  but  rather  terrible;  the  calm 
and  self-collected  alone  are  conscious  of  their  sub 
limity.  Hence,  indeed,  are  they  supplied  with  courage 
to  sustain  the  conflict.  To  fear  is  mortal;  angels  may 
reverence.  The  child  manifests  respect  ere  it  has  ex- 

[145] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

perienced  terror.  The  Deity  would  be  reverenced,  not 
feared. 

Hence  it  is  that  the  emotion  in  question  is  so  often 
attended  by  a  consciousness  of  our  own  littleness;  we 
are  accustomed  to  admire  what  seemeth  difficult  or  be 
yond  our  attainment.  But  to  feel  conscious  of  our  own 
weakness  is  not  positively  unpleasant,  unless  we  com 
pare  ourselves  with  what  is  incapable  of  commanding 
our  respect  or  reverence;  and  consequently  is  not  a 
source  of  the  sublime.  Grandeur,  of  some  kind  or 
other,  must  ever  enter  into  our  idea  of  the  sublime. 
Niagara  would  still  retain  her  sublimity,  though  her 
fall  should  be  reduced  many  feet;  but  the  puny  moun 
tain-stream  must  make  up  in  depth  of  fall  for  what  it 
lacks  in  volume. 

What  is  more  grand  than  mystery?  The  darker  it  is, 
the  grander  it  grows.  We  habitually  call  it  great. 
Burke  has  well  remarked  that  divisibility  of  matter  is 
sublime;  its  very  infinity  makes  it  so.  Infinity  is  the 
essence  of  sublimity. 

Whatever  demands  our  admiration  or  respect  is  in 
a  degree  sublime.  It  is  true  nothing  could  originally 
demand  our  respect  which  was  not  at  the  same  time 
capable  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  of  exciting  our  fear; 
but  this  does  not  prove  fear  to  be  the  source  of  that 
respect.  Nothing,  on  the  other  hand,  of  which  we 
stand  in  awe,  is  an  object  of  our  contempt;  yet  the 
source  of  our  contempt  is  not,  surely,  indifference,  or  a 
feeling  of  security.  It  will  be  enough  merely  to  advert 
to  the  immense  influence  which  the  association  of 
ideas  exerts. 

[146] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

Burke's  theory  would  extend  the  emotions  which  the 
Sublime  excites,  to  the  brute  creation.  They  suffer 
pain,  they  experience  terror,  they  possess  the  faculty 
of  memory;  and  philosophers  have  ascribed  to  them 
imagination  and  judgment.  Why  may  not,  then,  the 
brute  hearken  with  rapture  to  the  thunder's  peal,  or, 
in  the  depth  of  the  forest  enjoy  the  grandeur  of  the 
storm?  But  the  brute  knows  not  that  peculiar  rever 
ence  for  what  is  grand,  whether  in  nature  or  in  art,  or  in 
thought  or  in  action,  which  is  the  exclusive  birthright 
of  the  lord  of  creation.  There  is  an  infinity  in  the 
mystery,  the  power  and  grandeur,  which  concur  in  the 
Sublime,  —  the  abstract  nature  of  which  is  barely 
recognized,  though  not  comprehended,  by  the  human 
mind  itself.  Philosophers,  it  is  true,  have  ascribed  to 
brutes  "devotion,  or  respect  for  superiors";  but,  so  to 
speak,  this  is  a  respect  grounded  on  experience.  It  is 
practical  or  habitual,  not  the  fruit  of  abstract  reflec 
tion,  nor  does  it  amount  to  the  recognition  of  any 
moral  superiority. 

But  to  some  it  may  appear  that  this  reverence  for 
the  Grand,  if  I  may  so  style  it,  is  not  an  original  prin 
ciple  of  our  nature,  —  that  it  originates  in  fear. 

I  answer,  If  this  is  not,  neither  is  Fear.  Nay,  more, 
—  the  former  is  a  principle  more  universal  in  its  oper 
ation,  more  exalting  and  ennobling  in  its  influence:  and 
is,  besides,  so  superior  and  at  variance  with  fear,  that 
we  cannot  for  a  moment  derive  it  from  the  latter. 

The  philosopher  sees  cause  for  wonder  and  aston 
ishment  in  everything,  —  in  himself  and  in  all  around 
him;  he  has  only  to  reflect  that  he  may  admire.  Terror 

r  147  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

avoids  reflection,  though  reflection  alone  can  restore  to 
calmness  and  equanimity.  How  regard,  respect,  rev 
erence  can  grow  out  of  fear  is,  I  must  confess,  incom 
prehensible.  We  reverence  greatness,  moral  and  intel 
lectual;  the  giant  intellect  is  no  sooner  recognized  than 
it  demands  our  homage.  Moral  greatness  calls  for  the 
admiration  of  the  depraved,  even. 

The  emotion  excited  by  the  Sublime  is  the  most  un 
earthly  and  godlike  we  mortals  experience.  It  depends 
for  the  peculiar  strength  with  which  it  takes  hold  on 
and  occupies  the  mind,  upon  a  principle  which  lies  at 
the  foundation  of  that  worship  which  we  pay  to  the 
Creator  himself.  And  is  fear  the  foundation  of  that 
worship?  is  fear  the  ruling  principle  of  our  religion?  Is 
it  not,  rather,  the  mother  of  superstition? 

Yes,  —  that  principle  which  prompts  us  to  pay  an 
involuntary  homage  to  the  Infinite,  the  Incomprehen 
sible,  the  Sublime,  forms  the  very  basis  of  our  religion. 
It  is  a  principle  implanted  in  us  by  our  Maker,  —  a 
part  of  our  very  selves.  We  cannot  eradicate  it,  we 
cannot  resist  it;  fear  may  be  overcome,  death  may  be 
despised;  but  the  Infinite,  the  Sublime,  seize  upon  the 
soul  and  disarm  it.  We  may  overlook  them,  or,  rather, 
fall  short  of  them;  we  may  pass  them  by,  —  but  so 
sure  as  we  meet  them  face  to  face,  we  yield. 

This  is  properly  a  forensic.  In  it  young  Tho- 
reau  argues,  at  first  rather  technically,  but  finally 
with  earnestness  and  conviction,  for  what  was 
through  life  the  foundation  of  his  philosophy  and 
his  religion.  He  used  here  the  language  of  the  old 

[  148] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

believers,  and  the  fictions  of  Milton,  more  fa 
miliarly  than  he  would  have  done  twenty  years 
later,  because  he  was  arguing  in  the  midst  of  old 
believers;  but  the  fundamental  ideas  were  those 
which  he  steadfastly  maintained,  with  or  against 
friend  or  foe.  Channing  said  of  him  in  1873:  — 

The  high  moral  impulse  never  deserted  him,  and  he 
resolved  early  (1851)  to  read  no  book,  take  no  walk, 
undertake  no  enterprise,  but  such  as  he  could  endure 
to  give  an  account  of  to  himself. 

In  this  essay,  the  longest  of  this  moral  and 
religious  sort  which  I  find  in  these  collegiate 
papers,  we  see  how  early  these  serious  questions 
addressed  themselves  to  his  conscience,  and  how 
soon  he  settled  the  bases  of  his  religion.  This 
turn  of  spirit  drew  from  several  of  his  family  some 
question  and  remonstrance,  —  from  Helen,  his 
sister,  perhaps  first;  but  it  was  encouraged  by 
Emerson,  with  whom  about  this  time  (March, 
1837)  his  closer  intimacy  began.  It  was  from 
early  intimacy  with  his  young  friend's  spirit,  as 
well  as  from  their  long  friendship  in  after  years, 
that  Emerson  said  in  his  funeral  eulogy,  which  he 
insisted  should  be  given  in  the  parish  church:  — 

He  was  a  person  of  a  rare,  tender,  and  absolute  reli 
gion;  a  person  incapable  of  any  profanation,  by  act  or 
by  thought. 

[  149] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Thoreau  would  not  perhaps  have  used  in  later 
years  those  forms  of  Miltonic  expression  that 
came  so  naturally  to  his  pen  in  these  college  years; 
but  surely  there  was  in  him  that  innate  rever 
ence  which  was  so  marked  a  quality  of  his  Greek 
tutor  at  Harvard,  Jones  Very,  the  recluse  poet, 
whose  religious  verse  has  found  a  German  trans 
lator  and  been  published  in  Vienna,  of  all  places 
in  the  world.  Conformity,  to  be  sure,  was  much 
more  in  Very's  nature  than  in  Thoreau's.  How 
Henry  expressed  himself  about  that  decorous 
virtue,  may  be  seen  in  this  short  essay  of  May  15, 
1837: — 

XVIII.  Conformity  in  Things  Unessential 

"The  clock  sends  me  to  bed  at  ten,  and  makes  me  rise 
at  eight.  I  go  to  bed  awake,  and  arise  asleep;  but 
I  have  ever  held  conformity  one  of  the  arts  of 
life;  and  though  I  might  choose  my  own  hours,  I 
think  it  proper  to  follow  theirs."  (Mrs.  E.  Mon 
tagu's  Letters.) 
"Speak  of  the  duty,  inconvenience,  and  dangers  of 

Conformity,  in  little  things  and  great." 
Neither  natural  nor  revealed  religion  affords  any 
rules  by  which  we  may  determine  the  comparative 
enormity  of  different  vices,  or  the  comparative  excel 
lence  of  different  virtues. 

The  Hebrew  Code,  which  Christ  came  not  to  destroy 
but  to  fulfil,  makes  no  such  distinction;  vice,  under 

[  150] 


COLLEGE   ESSAYS 

whatever  form,  is  condemned  in  positive  and  unquali 
fied  terms.  We  are  told,  in  our  Savior's  exposition  of 
the  Law,  that  one  jot  or  one  tittle  shall  in  no  wise  pass 
from  the  law  until  all  be  fulfilled;  and  "Whosoever 
shall  break  one  of  the  least  Commandments,  and  shall 
teach  men  so,  shall  be  called  least  in  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven." 

So  far,  too,  as  man  has  deduced  a  moral  code  from  a 
philosophical  study  of  Nature,  her  design  and  opera 
tions,  —  our  remark  will  hold  good  of  that  also.  The 
idea  appears  to  be  a  prevalent  one  that  Duty  consists 
in  certain  outward  acts,  whose  performance  is  more  or 
less  obligatory  under  different  circumstances,  though 
it  can  never  be  entirely  neglected  with  impunity;  and 
consequently  that  one  duty  may  interfere  with  an 
other;  and  that  there  may  be  situations  in  which  a  man 
cannot  possibly  avoid  the  violation  of  duty.  This 
arises,  I  think,  from  confining  duty  to  the  outward  act, 
instead  of  making  it  consist  in  conformity  to  the  dic 
tates  of  an  inward  arbiter,  in  a  measure  independent  of 
Matter,  and  its  relations,  Time  and  Space.  Duty  is  one 
and  invariable;  it  requires  no  impossibilities,  nor  can 
it  ever  be  disregarded  with  impunity.  So  far  as  it  ex 
ists,  it  is  binding,  and  if  all  duties  are  binding,  so  as  on 
no  account  to  be  neglected,  how  can  one  bind  stronger 
than  another? 

So  far,  then,  as  duty  is  concerned,  we  may  entirely 
neglect  the  distinction  of  little  things  and  great.  Mere 
conformity  to  another's  habits  or  customs  is  never, 
properly  speaking,  a  duty,  though  it  may  follow  as  a 
natural  consequence  of  the  performance  of  Duty. 

[151  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

The  fact  that  such  is  the  general  practice  of  mankind 
does  not  affect  a  question  of  duty.  I  am  required,  it  is 
true,  to  respect  the  feelings  of  my  neighbor,  within  the 
limits  of  his  own  estate;  but  the  fear  of  displeasing  the 
world  ought  not  in  the  least  to  influence  my  actions. 
Were  it  otherwise,  the  principal  avenue  to  Reform 
would  be  closed. 

The  italicized  clause  above  is  cancelled  in  the 
copy  before  me,  —  the  only  one  existing  in  Tho- 
reau's  manuscript,  —  which  is  a  more  careless 
draft  than  usual,  containing  several  emendations 
in  the  text.  These  appear  to  have  been  made 
after  it  was  returned  by  the  professor  to  the  stu 
dent;  and  all  the  changes  appear  to  be  Thoreau's 
own.  It  seems  by  this  text  that  "Reform"  had 
become  an  important  object  in  the  view  of  this 
young  Senior  Sophister;  as  it  was  in  the  fervent 
thought  of  his  friend  Brownson,  then  a  "Loco- 
foco  Democrat"  and  not  yet  a  Catholic  priest; 
in  that  of  Garrison,  the  friend  of  his  family;  and 
in  the  musings  of  Bronson  Alcott,  who  had 
now  begun  to  visit  Emerson  in  his  retirement  at 
Concord,  and  must  soon  have  met  this  collegian 
there.  The  first  visit  of  Alcott  to  Concord  was 
in  1835,  on  the  very  day  that  Garrison  was 
mobbed  at  Scollay  Square  in  Boston,  and  com 
mitted  to  the  county  jail  by  Mayor  Lyman,  to 

[152] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

save  his  life  from  the  mob.  Returning  in  his 
chaise  from  Concord  that  September  evening, 
Alcott  went  to  call  on  his  persecuted  friend  in 
the  Leverett  Street  jail  —  to  renew  the  pledge 
he  had  given  Garrison  in  1831,  when  he  began 
to  publish  the  "Liberator,"  which  weekly  visited 
the  Thoreau  household,  wherever  it  might  dwell 
in  the  village. 

Not  long  after  the  date  of  this  brief  essay, 
Emerson  wrote  to  President  Quincy,  of  Harvard, 
asking  some  favor  from  the  dispensers  of  college 
benefactions  toward  his  young  friend,  who  al 
ready  had  enjoyed  the  income  of  an  old  Chelsea 
estate,  whose  rent  had  come  successively  to  the 
brothers  William  and  Waldo  Emerson  while  they 
were  in  Harvard,  fifteen  or  twenty  years  before. 
It  had  been  for  a  century  or  more  in  the  gift  of 
the  Second  Church  in  Boston,  of  which  Emer 
son's  father  had  been  the  pastor;  and  the  bene 
ficiary  was  expected  to  collect  his  own  rents, 
unless  a  deacon  of  the  church  volunteered  to  do 
that.  Thoreau  explained  to  me  one  day  at  his 
mother's  table  through  what  obstacles  of  dogs 
and  delays  he  had  gathered  in  his  rents  at  Rom- 
ney  Marsh,  the  old  name  of  that  seashore  dis 
trict.  Emerson's  request  to  Quincy  was  for 
something  other  than  this,  and  resulted  in  an 

[  153  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

"exhibition"  (the  technical  term)  of  $25,  which, 
said  the  old  President,  was  "within  $10,  or  at 
most  $15,  of  any  sum  he  would  have  received, 
had  no  objection  been  made."  This  objection 
showed  that  Thoreau  had  been  less  attentive  to 
college  requirements  than  the  immediate  watch 
men  of  his  college  life  thought  needful.  When 
I  asked  Marston  Watson,  of  Plymouth,  who  was 
Sophomore  while  Thoreau  was  Senior,  what  he 
knew  of  the  Concord  youth  in  college,  he  replied 
that  he  remembered  him  at  the  Chapel  in  a 
green  coat,  "green,  I  suppose,  because  the  rules 
required  black,"  —  implying  that  even  then  he 
was,  like  my  clerical  ancestor  in  England  under 
Laud,  a  "notorious  inconformist." 

Earlier  in  the  year  (February,  1837)  and  while 
Caleb  Gushing  and  the  Whig  Party  in  Massa 
chusetts  were  still  passing  anti-slavery  resolu 
tions  at  the  State  House,  with  the  approval  of 
Daniel  Webster,  Thoreau  discussed  in  an  essay 
the  issue  of  sectional  versus  national  politics, 
which  had  roused  debate  at  Washington,  and 
called  forth  the  stubborn  independence  of  John 
Quincy  Adams,  then  a  Congressman  from  the 
Quincy  district.  Here  it  is:  — 


[154] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

XIX.  Provincial  Americans 

"Speak  of  the  Characteristics  which,  either  humor 
ously  or  reproachfully,  we  are  in  the  Habit  of 
ascribing  to  the  People  of  different  Sections  of  our 
own  Country." 

Nationality  is  not  necessarily  nor  strictly  speaking 
an  aggregate  of  individualities,  —  any  further  than 
words  are  concerned.  A  people,  to  be  sure,  may 
be  peculiarly  industrious,  —  distinguished  from  their 
neighbors  in  that  respect,  in  the  same  manner  that  an 
individual  is;  but  usually,  when  we  reckon  industry 
among  the  characteristics  of  a  people,  we  refer  not  to 
any  peculiarity  in  that  industry,  but  to  its  prevalence. 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  we  say  of  an  individual  that 
he  is  a  shrewd  man,  no  peculiarity  is  implied;  so  that 
unless  we  coin  an  epithet  for  the  occasion,  we  are  fain 
to  call  him  a  peculiarly  shrewd  man.  This  may  teach 
us  how  far  the  knowledge  of  a  nation's  characteristics 
should  influence  our  judgment  of  individuals.  In  the 
first  place  we  are  to  consider  that  the  individual  before 
us  may  be  one  of  the  few  who,  constituting  but  a  small 
item  in  the  national  character,  were  not  taken  into  the 
account;  and  in  the  second  place,  that,  of  the  majority, 
not  a  single  individuality  can  be  embraced  or  implied. 
Add  to  this  the  fact  that  such  characteristics  may  gen 
erally  be  traced  to  the  Journal  of  some  traveller,  who 
has  taken  a  hasty  and  partial  survey  of  but  one 
section  of  a  country,  and  are  often  the  mere  echo 
of  previous  prejudices,  —  and  we  shall  be  able  to 
judge  how  slight  the  probability  is  that  the  so-called 

[  155] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

characteristics  of  a  people  have  any  foundation  in 
truth. 

It  is  not  a  little  curious  to  observe  how  Man,  the 
boasted  Lord  of  Creation,  is  the  slave  of  a  name,  —  a 
mere  sound.  Cassius  was  not  the  first  to  note  this.  The 
distinction  of  classes  in  a  college  affords  an  instance  of 
it.  If  a  multitude  be  collected  from  all  quarters,  and 
of  every  condition,  and  a  common  name  be  given  them, 
a  powerful  sympathy  will  immediately  spring  up;  which 
in  time  will  generate  a  community  of  interests.  In  this 
light,  man  is  properly  enough  called  a  gregarious  ani 
mal  ;  but  it  appears  to  me  the  common  epithet  is  as  often 
the  connecting  link,  as  it  is  the  result  of  such  a  unit. 

Rome  had  never  been  the  mistress  of  the  world,  had 
not  the  distinction  of  allies  been  merged  in  the  title  of 
"Roman  Citizen."  They  were  Romans  who  con 
quered  the  world:  so  many  Latins,  Apulians,  and  Cam- 
panians,  had  they  stood  in  other  respects  in  precisely 
the  same  relative  situations,  would  sooner  have  gone 
to  war  with  each  other. 

How  much  mischief  have  those  magical  words, 
North,  South,  East,  and  West  occasioned!  Could  we 
not  rest  satisfied  with  one  mighty,  all-embracing  West, 
leaving  the  other  three  cardinal  points  to  the  Old 
World?  —  methinks  we  should  not  have  cause  for 
so  much  apprehension  about  the  preservation  of  the 
Union.  When  in  addition  to  these  natural  distinctions, 
descriptive  and  characteristic  epithets  are  applied,  by 
their  own  countrymen,  to  the  people  of  different  sec 
tions,  though  in  a  careless  and  bantering  manner,  the 
patriot  may  well  tremble  for  the  Union. 

[  156  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

A  sound,  impartial  judgment  is  less  to  be  esteemed 
for  the  evident  good  consequences  it  leads  to,  than 
prejudice  is  to  be  feared  for  the  incalculable  evil  it 
engenders.  It  is  easier  to  convince  a  man's  reason  than 
to  regulate  his  feelings.  There  are  certain  principles 
implanted  in  us  which,  independently  of  the  will,  teach 
us  the  consistency  and  inconsistency  of  things,  when 
viewed  in  certain  relations.  By  operating  upon  these 
principles,  through  the  medium  of  certain  definite 
propositions,  corresponding  invariable  results  in  the 
mind  of  each  one,  of  necessity  follow.  That  these  con 
clusions  as  invariably  affect  the  conduct,  I  do  not  pre 
tend.  The  feelings,  on  the  other  hand,  are  not  at  the 
mercy  of  any  such  definite  law  which  regulates  and 
disposes  them.  The  eloquence  which  at  one  time 
touches  with  a  master's  hand  the  chords  of  human 
sympathy,  and  raises  almost  to  a  pitch  of  phrenzy  the 
rapt  and  excited  multitude,  at  another,  perhaps,  falls 
powerless  and  ineffectual;  or  excites  those  very  feelings 
it  was  its  object  to  soothe  and  allay. 

There  is  the  same  difficulty  in  dissipating  those  prej 
udices  already  formed.  The  sober  truth  may  be  recog 
nized,  the  false  judgment  admitted,  —  but  a  crowd  of 
associations  has  so  confounded  error  with  the  most 
palpable  truths,  that  the  evil  can  be  but  partially,  if 
ever,  eradicated.  What  once  floated  harmlessly  upon 
the  surface,  in  time  commingles  with  and  becomes  a 
part  of  the  mighty  element,  which  at  first  barely 
afforded  it  a  resting-place. 

This  disquisition,  profound  to  the  verge  of 
[157] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

obscurity,  without  once  touching  practicality, 
must  have  fatigued  the  professor,  as  it  still  does 
the  casual  reader.  Its  deep  truth  is  apparent, 
notwithstanding,  —  and  also  the  whimsical  per 
versity  or  paradoxicality  which  inspired  its  com 
position.  About  this  time  (February,  1837)  Tho- 
reau's  manifest  turn  for  paradox  was  showing 
itself  more  and  more  in  company  with  that  feli 
city  of  phrase  and  occasional  originality  that 
contrasted  sharply  with  a  few  habits  of  rhetoric, 
caught  from  his  companions,  or  from  some  aged 
professor.  It  is  said  that  the  Hollis  Professor  of 
Divinity,  the  elder  Henry  Ware,  had  special 
tricks  of  speech  (such  as  "on  the  one  hand,"  "on 
the  other  hand")  which  the  graceless  students 
caught  at  and  satirized.  Thus  the  artist  Chris 
topher  Cranch,  who  graduated  in  1835,  along 
with  Thoreau's  correspondent  and  editor  Harrison 
Blake,  used  to  feign  Dr.  Ware  arrived  in  the 
Kingdom  of  Heaven,  looking  about  him  over  his 
spectacles,  and  exclaiming,  "While  on  the  one 
hand  we  must  admit  that  no  merit  of  our  own  has 
availed  to  bring  us  to  this  desirable  place,  —  on 
the  other  hand,  we  are  bound  to  praise  the  good 
ness  of  our  Lord,  who  hath,  in  spite  of  our  un- 
worthiness  thus  filled  all  our  desires."  Thoreau 
may  have  fallen  unconsciously  into  this  measured 

I  158] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

way  of  speaking  and  writing.   No  such  formality 
restrains  him  in  the  next  fragmentary  essay:  — 

XX.  Various  Means  of  Public  Influence 

"Compare  some  of  the  Methods  of  gaining  or  exercis 
ing  Public  Influence:  as  Lectures,  the  Pulpit, 
Associations,  the  Press,  Political  Office." 
Inveterate  custom,  as  well  as  the  respect  with  which 
most  men  regard  his  sacred  office,  secure  to  the 
Preacher  a  certain,  though  limited  influence.  He  is  the 
shepherd  of  a  flock,  —  the  infallible  guide  and  arbiter 
in  spiritual  affairs.  His  parish  is  his  kingdom,  where  he 
rules  with  an  almost  despotic  sway;  the  young,  even 
from  the  cradle,  are  taught  to  value  his  approving 
smile,  and  tremble  at  his  frown:  the  aged  despise  not 
his  teachings,  nor  are  the  vicious  backward  to  respect 
those  virtues  which  yet  they  fail  to  imitate.  At  church 
he  can  depend  upon  an  orderly,  if  not  an  attentive 
audience;  the  great  truths  and  principles  which  are 
there  expounded,  equally  concern  the  highest  interests 
of  all.  Criticism  has  no  place  there;  the  peculiarities 
and  failings  of  the  preacher  are  overlooked,  or,  if 
noticed,  are  willingly  pardoned  by  his  indulgent  hear 
ers.  The  character  of  the  day,  as  well  as  the  sanctity  of 
the  place,  are  the  source  of  a  thousand  associations, 
which  impart  a  degree  of  solemnity  and  weight  to  his 
words,  —  scarcely  to  be  attained  by  the  most  labored 
style,  aided  by  all  the  arts  of  eloquence. 

"Truth  from  his  lips  prevails  with  double  sway, 
And  fools  who  came  to  scoff  remain  to  pray." 

[  159  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Yet  the  sphere  of  the  Preacher's  influence  is  com 
paratively  narrow  and  circumscribed.  His  own  little 
flock  alone  acknowledge  his  sway:  the  village  spire 
overlooks  his  puny  territories,  while  the  sound  of  the 
"church-going  bell"  is  heard  in  their  remotest  corner. 
To  respect  his  person  and  venerate  his  teachings,  from 
a  duty  degenerates  into  a  habit,  which,  from  the  very 
nature  of  its  origin,  too  often  opposes  an  insuperable 
barrier  to  a  further  increase  of  his  authority. 

He,  on  the  other  hand,  who  addresses  his  fellowmen 
through  the  medium  of  the  Press,  is  so  far  a  stranger  to 
the  mass  of  his  readers  as  not  to  be  exposed  to  the  mass 
of  those  prejudices  with  which  a  personal  acquaintance 
would  be  inevitably  attended.  His  field  of  labor  is  the 
universe.  The  thousands  of  newspapers  that  circu 
late  throughout  the  United  States  develope  different 
sorts  of  editors.  One  sort  gives  his  readers  conclusions 
at  which  he  had  previously  arrived,  without  troubling 
them  with  a  formidable  list  of  propositions  and  con 
necting  links;  here  are  the  facts,  —  let  them  "pepper 
and  dish  as  they  choose."  Another  editor  is  by  far 
more  sophistical;  in  his  articles  not  a  single  term,  prem 
ise  or  mode  but  is  subjected  to  the  severest  scrutiny. 
He  goes  on  very  well  till  he  comes  to  the  inference:  but 
then,  alas !  after  all  this  display,  he  is  wont  to  draw  his 
inference  by  main  force  from  some  other  quarter.  One 
editor  is  disposed  to  show  all  he  knows,  if  not  to  know 
all  he  shows.  Another  is  so  overwhelmed  with  particu 
lars  that  he  is  unable  to  wield  them  all.  His  inference 
may  be  so  unwieldy  that  he  is  unable  to  start  it.  An 
other  takes  but  a  partial  view  of  things,  and  is  very 

[  160] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

much  in  the  situation  of  one  who  looks  through  a 
microscope,  and  thus  obtains  a  correct  idea  of  the 
minute  parts  of  an  object;  but  is  apt  to  lose  sight  of  its 
outward  bulk  and  more  obvious  qualities. 

In  authorship,  as  we  see  it  in  America  to-day,  there 
are  at  least  two  distinct  varieties,  the  Travelling 
Author  and  the  Native  Author.  The  first  lands  on  our 
shores  with  all  the  prejudices  of  the  old  countries  fresh 
in  his  mind;  and  prepares  to  criticise  our  manners,  our 
customs,  and  our  country,  by  comparison  with  those 
paragons  which  he  has  left  at  home.  Fully  impressed, 
as  every  honest  citizen  should  be,  with  the  superiority 
of  his  own  country,  and  the  preeminent  perfection  of 
her  government  and  institutions,  he  judges  of  what  is 
right  and  wrong,  good  and  bad  (for  these  are  but  rela 
tive  terms),  by  comparison  with  those  fixed  and  fault 
less  standards,  to  distrust  which  is  to  him  worse  than 
sacrilege.  Be  he  ever  so  free  from  prejudice,  ever  so 
liberal  a  cosmopolite  (in  the  broadest  sense),  the  pro 
fessed  journalist  and  travelling  bachelor  is  too  tender 
of  the  bantling  on  his  hands,  —  his  respectable  duo 
decimo  that  is  to  be,  —  too  solicitous  for  the  popular 
ity  of  his  book,  —  to  withhold  the  "sugared  cates"  so 
temptingly  offered  at  every  turn;  or,  when  he  has  done, 
to  offer  the  needed  cathartic.  In  despair  of  acquiring  a 
vigorous  and  healthy  fame,  he  is  fain  to  content  him 
self  with  a  shortlived  and  bloated  reputation,  though 
at  the  expense  of  truth. 

Not  so  with  the  Native  Author.  He  feels  that  he  is 
writing  the  biography  of  a  family  of  which  he  is  himself 
a  member.  It  is  the  broad  and  flourishing  homestead 

[161  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

that  he  describes;  the  faults  and  blemishes  in  the  pic 
ture  he  has  never  attended  to,  —  or  else  the  whim- 
whams  and  oddities  of  his  brothers  and  sisters  have 
become  so  familiar  to  him  as  no  longer  to  seem  such. 
He  remarks  in  them  those  peculiarities  alone  from 
which  he  is  free,  and  which,  to  the  eye  of  a  stranger, 
have  nothing  in  common  with  habits  of  mind  which 
are  said  to  "run  in  the  family."  The  one,  in  fine,  knows 
too  much,  and  the  other  too  little,  of  the  country  he 
would  describe,  and  the  manners  he  pretends  to 
portray. 

Here  the  fragment  ends.  In  his  Preacher, 
Thoreau  was  drawing  a  sketch  of  Dr.  Ripley, 
who  baptized  and  catechized  him,  and  to  whose 
sermons  he  listened  for  years.  In  the  second 
chapter  of  the  "Week"  this  pastor  of  half  a  cen 
tury  is  briefly  remembered  in  verse:  — 

"  Here  then  an  aged  Shepherd  dwelt, 
Who  to  his  flock  his  substance  dealt, 
And  ruled  them  with  a  vigorous  crook, 
By  precept  of  the  sacred  Book; 
But  he  the  pierless  bridge  passed  o'er, 
And  solitary  left  the  shore." 

He  was  living  when  John  and  Henry  Thoreau 
passed  and  repassed  along  the  river  at  the  foot 
of  the  orchard  of  the  old  parson;  but  in  1849, 
when  the  volume  was  printed,  he  had  been  dead 
eight  years,  and  Hawthorne,  who  had  succeeded 

I  162  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

him  in  the  Old  Manse,  had  also  "left  the  shore," 
and  was  living  at  Lenox.  The  Manse  reverted 
to  the  Ripley  family  who  owned  it,  and  the 
learned  Mrs.  Ripley,  a  widow,  was  housekeeper 
there  until  her  death  in  1867. 

It  may  be  added,  in  correction  of  an  error  which 
Emerson  never  corrected  in  successive  editions 
of  his  "Poems,"  that  it  was  not  on  April  19,  1836, 
but  on  July  4,  1837,  the  year  of  Thoreau's  grad 
uation,  that  the  celebrated  "Hymn"  was  sung 
"at  the  completion  of  the  Battle  Monument." 
Delay  in  the  stone  work  had  carried  the  date 
beyond  that  originally  fixed,  and  even  a  year 
afterward,  and  so  the  next  patriotic  holiday  was 
chosen.  The  inscription,  in  the  mean  time,  had 
also  been  written  by  Emerson;  but  his  elders  in 
the  village  thought  they  could  better  his  English, 
and  threw  it  into  its  present  form.  A  choir  from 
the  churches  sang  the  immortal  poem  to  the  tune 
of  "Old  Hundred,"  and  Thoreau,  who  was  then 
habitually  a  singer,  as  well  as  a  flute-player, 
joined  in  the  choir. 

Thoreau's  powers  of  analysis  and  classifica 
tion,  and  his  methodical  reasoning  on  most  sub 
jects,  indicate  that  his  paradoxes  were  rather  a 
sport  of  his  humor,  or  a  freak  of  fancy,  inherited 
from  one  of  that  very  dissimilar  group  of  ances- 

[  163  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

tors  and  ancestresses  of  whom  he  descended.  But, 
like  all  young  persons,  he  had  much  to  learn, 
even  along  the  line  of  his  inherited  bent  of  mind; 
and  the  next  essay,  which  I  have  deferred  till 
now,  will  show  how  much  he  had  profited  by 
Harvard  training,  self-culture,  and  Emersonian 
influences,  in  the  intervening  two  years.  This 
essay  is  one  of  the  earliest  in  date.  Though  dated 
late  in  1835,  I  have  reasons  for  thinking  it  be 
longs  in  the  Sophomore  year,  1834-35,  and  dates 
from  the  late  autumn  of  1834:  — 


XXI.  Mankind  Classified 

"Explain  the  phrases,  a  Man  of  Business,  a  Man  of 
Pleasure,  a  Man  of  the  World." 

To  say  of  one  that  he  is  a  Man  of  Business,  according 
to  the  general  acceptation  of  the  phrase,  seems  not 
merely  to  imply  that  he  is  engaged  in  business,  but  also 
that  he  is  an  energetic,  persevering  man;  one  who  is 
ever  on  the  lookout,  ever  awake  to  his  interest,  —  well 
calculated  to  get  along  in  the  world.  A  man  may  be  an 
excellent  calculator,  he  may  form  the  best  of  plans,  but 
fail  in  the  execution  of  them.  And,  on  the  other  hand, 
many  who  have  no  fixed  plans,  who  are  incapable  of 
looking  far  into  futurity,  and  of  forming  and  abiding 
by  any  fixed  rules  of  conduct,  may  in  the  end  succeed 
better  than  the  former. 

Nothing  can  be  of  more  advantage  in  business  than  a 
[  164  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

habit  of  despatch;  and  what  contributes  more  to  that 
than  method?  In  fine,  let  one  possess  method  and  per 
severance,  industry  and  activity,  —  united  with  pru 
dence  and  foresight,  and  a  competent  knowledge  of 
human  nature,  —  and  you  may  justly  call  him  a  Man 
of  Business. 

A  large  portion  of  mankind  are  wrapped  up  in  the 
pursuit  of  what  they  imagine  to  be  pleasure;  which, 
like  their  own  shadows,  is  always  within  a  certain  dis 
tance,  but  which  no  effort  on  their  part  can  bring 
nearer;  so  that  their  only  real  enjoyment  lies  in  the 
anticipation  of  pleasure.  The  fault  seems  to  lie  not  so 
much  in  the  object,  as  in  the  means  employed.  They 
have  a  false  idea  of  pleasure ;  with  them,  as  far  as  a  thing 
is  useful,  so  far  is  it  devoid  of  pleasure;  hence  they 
"forsake  what  may  instruct  for  what  may  please." 

"Whom  call  we  gay?  That  honor  has  been  long 
The  boast  of  mere  pretenders  to  the  name: 
The  innocent  are  gay.*' 

Hence  we  perceive  that  the  phrase  "a  Man  of 
Pleasure"  is  generally  applied  to  those  who  in  fact 
enjoy  the  least. 

Avoid  a  Man  of  the  World  as  you  would  avoid  a 
viper!  for,  like  the  viper  in  the  fable,  he  will  sting  the 
hand  that  has  nourished  him.  Sheridan  has  observed 
with  regard  to  this  class,  that  they  have  become  so 
polished  and  refined  that  their  Maker's  inscription  is 
worn  from  them,  and  when  he  calls  in  his  coin,  he  will 
not  know  them  for  his  own.  This  man  is  your  friend  so 
long  as  it  serves  his  interest;  he  is  well  acquainted  with 
men  and  manners,  and  by  means  of  his  art  passes,  per- 

[  165  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

haps,  for  a  true  gentleman,  —  for  an  honorable  and 
benevolent  man;  but  in  truth  his  honor  and  morality 
are  regulated  by  the  fashion  of  the  times.  His  principal 
object  is  to  turn  everything  to  his  advantage;  and  for 
this  purpose  he  endeavors  to  gain  the  respect  or  good 
will  of  all  around  him. 

The  unworldly  tone  and  the  unformed  hand 
writing,  which  yet  is  Henry's  own  unmistakably, 
confirm  the  suspicion  that  it  is  one  of  the  earliest 
of  these  essays  preserved.  It  is  numbered  11  — 
but  we  do  not  know  when  the  numbering  began. 
Immediately  preceding  it  in  assumed  date,  and 
equally  unformed  in  chirography  and  knowledge 
of  the  world,  yet  quaint  and  entertaining,  is  this 
comment  on  — 

XXII.  Social  Forms  and  Restraints 

"On  what  Grounds  may  the  Forms,  Ceremonies  and 
Restraints  of  Polite  Society  be  objected  to?  Speak 
of  some  of  them.  What  Purposes  are  they  in 
tended  to  answer?" 

In  a  primitive  state  of  society,  where  man  is  buried 
in  ignorance,  and  the  arts  and  refinements  of  civilized 
life  are  neglected  —  or  rather,  unknown  —  but  few 
forms  or  ceremonies  exist :  while,  on  the  other  hand,  as 
civilization  advances,  and  the  pursuits  and  studies  of 
mankind  assume  a  nobler  and  more  elevated  character, 
— in  that  proportion  does  Man,  in  this  intercourse  with 
his  fellows,  comply  with  certain  rules,  which  serve  in  a 

[  166] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

measure  to  preserve  a  just  balance  between  the  differ 
ent  classes  of  society.  I  say  in  a  measure  only;  for  most 
are  apt  to  go  to  excess  in  this  particular.  If  one  wishes 
to  obtain  their  good  opinion,  he  must  go  through  a  long 
catalogue  of  useless  forms,  and  sacrifice  truth,  sincerity 
and  candor  to  politeness. 

A  friend  is  invited  to  dine,  —  each  dish  is  excellent, 
the  very  dinner  he  could  have  desired,  neither  too  rare 
nor  overdone.  Are  the  contents  of  his  neighbor's  glass 
unluckily  transferred  to  his  dress?  O,  't  is  of  no  con 
sequence!  he  had  already  determined  to  send  it  to  the 
dye-house;  and,  moreover,  had  previously  fixed  upon 
the  very  color  which  will  conceal  its  present  defect. 
Thus  are  these  petty  evils  beauties  in  his  eyes  (those 
eyes  which  for  the  time,  he  uses),  —  and  himself,  per 
haps,  in  the  eyes  of  his  host,  what  is  still  more  estima 
ble,  —  a  perfect  gentleman,  truly  a  pattern  of  polite 
ness.  After  much  bowing  and  scraping  he  is  released, 
—  yes,  released,  —  for,  during  the  last  hour  or  two,  he 
has  been  under  a  certain  restraint,  and  is  now  as  glad 
to  be  liberated  as  the  prisoner  whose  term  has  expired. 

Here  is  a  touch  of  everyday  life,  drawn  from 
observation,  and  not  from  Cooper's  novels  nor 
Sheridan's  comedies.  The  old  wooden  county 
prison,  in  which  Henry's  great-uncles,  Josiah  and 
Simeon,  had  been  confined  in  the  Revolution, 
had  now  been  long  replaced  by  a  strong  granite 
dungeon,  with  rings  and  staples  for  the  chaining 
down  of  murderers  and  maniacs,  built  in  1797, 

[167] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

in  which  afterward  Thoreau  himself,  in  1845, 
was  briefly  imprisoned;  it  stood  behind  the 
sheriff's  house  and  was  usually  well  filled  with 
short-sentence  prisoners,  who  were  employed  to 
reclaim  the  jailer's  peat-bog  and  alder-swamp. 
These  hard-worked,  and  occasionally  hanged, 
prisoners  were  objects  of  curiosity  to  the  boys 
and  youth  of  the  village;  and  Henry  had  often 
seen  them  released  at  the  expiration  of  their 
term.  The  polite  dinner-party  may  have  also 
been  witnessed  by  him  at  Major  Hosmer's,  the 
High  Sheriff's,  or  Squire  Hoar's,  the  leader  of  the 
bar,  or  Colonel  Whiting's,  the  commander  of 
the  local  regiment.  We  resume  the  sketch  by  this 
young  Theophrastus  or  La  Bruyere:  — 

Perhaps  on  his  way  home  he  meets  his  friend  G. 
There  is  no  escape,  the  road  is  straight,  he  must  there 
fore  summon  up  courage  and  press  onward.  "How  do 
you  do?  I  am  heartily  glad  to  see  you,  —  have  been 
penned  up  at  my  friend  R/s  these  three  hours;  hope 
you  will  honor  me  with  a  call  immediately!  (Aside) 
Fortunately  I'm  about  to  leave  town." 

This  is  carried  too  far;  it  is  beneath  the  dignity  of  a 
true  gentleman  to  be  tied  down  by  such  restraints.  To 
be  sure,  ceremony  may  serve  as  a  barrier  against  im 
pertinence,  but  it  also  hides  a  multitude  of  sins.  Far 
from  estimating  a  man's  character  by  the  degree  of 
attention  he  bestows  upon  this  point,  you  may  rest 

[  168] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

assured  that,  the  more  extensive  the  outworks,  the 
wider  and  deeper  the  moat,  the  more  insignificant  is 
the  garrison  within.  Like  the  Romans  who,  half  fam 
ished  with  hunger,  in  order  to  deceive  the  enemy,  cast 
forth  that  bread  which  was  so  scarce,  —  so  do  the 
ceremonious  deceive  those  around  them  with  regard 
to  their  true  characters,  by  an  occasional  display  of 
that  wisdom  which  they  so  much  need.1 

To  conclude,  —  as  an  eminent  writer  has  remarked, 
—  "Ceremony  is  the  superstition  of  good  breeding,  as 
well  as  of  religion;  but  yet,  being  an  outwork  of  both, 
should  not  be  absolutely  demolished."  It  must  to  a 
certain  degree  be  complied  with,  though  in  itself  a 
very  silly  thing. 

I  have  introduced  these  rather  boyish  essays 
out  of  their  true  date,  partly  by  way  of  contrast 
to  the  serious  writing  that  here  precedes  them, 
and  also  because  they  illustrate  a  vein  of  hu 
mor  and  juvenility  in  Thoreau  that,  until  his 
last  illness,  he  never  quite  outgrew.  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  who,  of  all  his  companions,  best  knew  the 

}  The  phrase  "that  wisdom  which  he  so  much  needs  "  is  from  the 
prayer  of  the  eccentric  parson  William  Swett,  son  of  Colonel  Swett, 
of  Lexington,  for  the  President  of  the  United  States,  after  General 
Jackson  had  removed  the  deposits  from  his  antagonist  Biddle's 
United  States  Bank;  in  the  national  controversy  over  that  organ 
of  the  plutocracy  of  the  period,  which  secured  the  allegiance  and 
ruined  the  careers  of  Henry  Clay  and  Daniel  Webster.  "O  Lord, 
bless  the  President  of  these  United  States,"  prayed  the  parson  at 
the  Cattle-Show  dinner;  "Grant  him  that  wisdom  which  he  so 
much  needs."  For  Thoreau's  description  of  this  Cattle  Show,  see  a 
later  page. 

[  169] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

intricacies  and  contrasts  of  his  nature,  has 
twice  in  his  books  touched  on  this  juvenility  of 
the  grave  moralist  and  poet-naturalist  —  in  his 
"Wanderer"  and  in  his  Life  of  Thoreau.  The 
latter,  in  its  first  form,  he  began  to  publish  in  the 
"Boston  Commonwealth,"  while  I  was  its  editor, 
in  1863-64,  and  before  he  published  it  in  book 
form,  made  serious  omissions  and  additions  in 
1873.  He  styled  his  "Wanderer"  a  "colloquial 
poem,"  and  in  the  canto  about  Monadnoc,  de 
scribing  that  mountain  and  its  Concord  visit 
ants,  Channing  wrote, — 

"  Hither  not  often  wandered 
Up  from  the  vale  a  sportive  lad,  whose  lessons 
Rightly  learned  and  brought  from  out-door  science, 
Required  all  growths  of  Nature,  new  or  old. 
So  strangely  was  her  general  current  mixed 
With  his  vexed  native  blood,  in  its  crank  wit, 
That  as  a  mirror  shone  this  common  world 
To  this  observing  youth:  whom  noting,  thence 
I  called  Idolon,  —  ever  firm  to  mark 
Swiftly  reflected  in  himself  the  Whole: 
Whereat  Dame  Nature  smiled,  to  see  her  boy 
An  individual  life,  prepared  to  be 
Her  mirror,  by  his  notions,  if  he  may." 

The  Greek  noun  Eidolon  was  thus  a  term  for 
Thoreau,  not  ill-chosen,  though  a  mystical  one. 
"The  Wanderer"  was  printed  in  1871.   In  the 

[  170  ] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

first  chapter  of  the  Life  of  Thoreau  (1873)  he 
said,  —  and  this  is  in  the  original  manuscript 
sketch  of  1864:  — 

He  was  one  of  those  who  keep  so  much  of  the  boy  in 
them  that  he  could  never  pass  a  berry  without  picking 
it.  I,  being  gifted  with  a  lesser  degree  of  this  edible 
religion,  frequently  had  to  leave  him  in  the  rear,  pick 
ing  his  berry,  while  I  sat  looking  at  the  landscape,  or 
admiring  my  berry-loving  lad.  In  his  later  articles  he 
rubbed  out  as  perfectly  as  he  could  the  more  humorous 
parts,  —  originally  a  relief  to  their  sterner  features. 
He  said  to  me,  "I  cannot  bear  the  levity  I  find."  To 
which  I  replied,  I  hoped  he  would  spare  them,  —  even 
to  the  puns,  in  which  he  sometimes  indulged.  As  to 
his  laughing,  no  man  did  that  more  or  better. 

Quite  apart  from  this  jesting  vein  is  the  next 
forensic  to  be  cited  (April  28,  1837):  — 

XXIII.  The  Morality  of  Lying 

"  Question  the  Opinions  of  J.  Dymond  and  Mrs.  Opie, 
respecting   the   general   Obligation   to   tell   the 
Truth:  are  they  sound  and  applicable?    (Vide 
Dymond's  'Essays  on  Morality*  and  Mrs.  Amelia 
Opie's  'Illustrations  of  Lying.')" 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  the  examination  of  Mr. 
Dymond's  opinions,  without  pretending  to  offer  any  of 
my  own. 

He  defines  a  lie  to  be  "uttering  what  is  not  true, 
when  the  speaker  professes  to  utter  truth,  or  when  he 

[171  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

knows  it  is  expected  by  the  hearer."  We  are  to  bear  in 
mind  that  whether  the  term  is  to  be  used  in  a  good  or 
bad  sense,  must  depend  upon  the  definition  assigned  it. 
As  here  used  it  is  altogether  arbitrary.  Mr.  Dymond 
does  not  tell  us  that  this  or  that  is  a  lie,  but  finds 
it  necessary  to  first  define  the  term,  —  to  inform  us 
what,  in  the  following  essay,  is  to  be  understood  by  the 
term  lie. 

This  being  premised,  let  us  inquire  whether  a  man 
may,  under  any  circumstances  conceivable,  tell  a  lie 
without  the  infraction  of  the  moral  law.  May  we  not 
He  to  a  robber,  to  preserve  our  property?  Our  author 
thinks  not.  If  we  may  lie  to  preserve  our  property, 
says  he,  we  may  murder;  and  as  it  would  be  wrong  to 
murder  in  such  a  case,  so  would  it  be  wrong  to  lie.  But 
this  reasoning  is  by  no  means  conclusive;  for  who  can 
say  what  constitutes  a  lie?  Dymond  applies  the  term 
arbitrarily  to  certain  forms  of  speech;  suppose  we  do 
the  same.  To  lie,  we  will  say,  is  "to  utter  what  is  true 
when  the  speaker  professes  to  utter  truth,  or  when  he 
knows  it  is  expected  by  the  hearers." 

To  lie,  then,  in  this  sense  would  be  immoral,  because 
to  murder  with  the  same  view,  would  be  immoral.  It 
is  the  similarity  of  purpose,  and  not  of  means,  which 
constitutes  the  immorality  in  this  case.  This  method 
of  reasoning  amounts  in  fact  to  a  manifest  petitio 
principii. 

But  further,  may  we  not  tell  a  falsehood  to  a  mad 
man  for  his  own  advantage?  Dymond's  answer 
amounts  to  this:  It  would  not  be  for  his  advantage, 
and  hence  it  would  be  morally  wrong  to  commit  so 

[172] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

egregious  a  blunder.  Indeed,  this  is  the  only  sign  of  an 
argument  adduced  to  prove  this  particular  point. 
This,  surely,  is  founding  the  guilt  of  lying  upon  its  ill 
effects,  which  procedure  our  author  condemned  in  the 
outset. 

In  the  second  place,  are  those  untruths  (sometimes 
amounting  to  lies  in  the  sense  in  which  Dymond  uses 
the  term)  which  custom  has  sanctioned,  in  any  way 
defensible?  We  must  here  have  some  regard  to  the 
effects  of  the  practice,  —  the  motives  and  expectations 
of  the  parties  being  unknown.  If  these  are  not  lies,  they 
are  evidently  gratuitous;  for  where  is  the  use  of  telling 
an  untruth  to  one  who  receives  it  as  such?  if  it  is  not  a 
fiction  calculated  to  please  and  instruct.  Might  not 
one  as  well  remain  silent. 

But  what  is  useless  is  never  harmless.  If,  on  the  other 
hand,  these  are  lies,  —  the  speaker  "utters  what  is 
untrue,  when  he  professes  to  utter  truth,  or  when  he 
knows  it  is  expected  by  the  hearer,"  his  conduct  is 
certainly  to  be  condemned. 

As  for  those  cases  in  which  it  is  impossible  to  be 
deceived,  —  the  compliments  which  bring  up  the  rear 
in  a  dedication  or  epistle,  —  we  can  at  best  say  no  good 
of  them.  To  excuse  them  because  they  are  taken  for 
what  they  are  worth,  would  be  like  pardoning  the  vices 
of  a  dangerous  member  of  society,  because  his  charac 
ter  is  properly  estimated,  —  the  very  fact  of  its  being 
understood  implying  its  condemnation. 

This  seems  to  be  a  grave  jest,  aimed  at  the  lack 
of  humor  in  the  excellent  Quaker,  J.  Dymond; 

I  173  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

and,  by  its  silence  about  Amelia  Opie,  implying 
a  snub  to  her. 

In  July,  1835,  when  he  had  been  two  years  in 
college,  David  Henry  Thoreau,  at  the  close  of 
his  Sophomore  year,  took  part  at  a  college  "exhi 
bition"  along  with  Manlius  Clarke,  in  a  Greek 
dialogue,  "Decius  and  Cato";  Thoreau  taking 
the  appropriate  part  of  Cato.  In  the  preceding 
May,  Jones  Very,  still  an  undergraduate,  but 
soon  to  be  a  Greek  tutor,  had  a  Greek  version,  — 
both  assignments  indicating  the  specialty  of  the 
two  students  in  the  language  of  Athens.  It  is 
fair  to  infer  that  Very  influenced  Thoreau  in  his 
fondness  for  Greek,  and  it  is  true  that  of  all  the 
Concord  authors,  Thoreau  was  the  best  versed 
in  Greek.  Mrs.  Ripley  alone  exceeded  him  in 
the  amount  of  her  Greek  reading;  but  she  had 
more  years  at  her  disposal  for  that  study.  In  the 
spring  of  1836,  before  leaving  college  as  an  in 
valid,  —  during  which  vacation  he  built  and 
sailed  his  rude  Argo  with  its  Indian  name,  — 
Thoreau  took  up  in  the  following  essay  the  grave 
question  of  Fate,  as  understood  by  the  ancients, 
—  a  frequent  subject  with  him. 


[1741 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

XXIV.  Fate  among  the  Ancients 

"What  is  the  Meaning  of  Fate  in  the  Ancient  Use  of 
the  Word?  What  is  its  popular  Significance  now?  " 

No  language  is  so  meagre  or  so  imperfect  as  not  to 
contain  a  term  very  nearly  if  not  exactly  synonymous 
with  our  word  "Fate."  This  proves  the  universality  of 
the  idea.  But  men  in  different  ages,  and  under  differ 
ent  circumstances,  have  attributed  to  various  causes 
the  same  or  similar  phenomena.  Although  the  works 
of  Fate  have  been  the  same,  yet  fate  itself  has  un 
dergone  an  almost  infinite  variety  of  modifications. 
Whereas  we  read  that  in  old  times  a  certain  inexorable 
trio,  called  Moirai,  commencing  with  the  raw  material, 
spun  out  and  finally  severed  the  thread  of  human  life, 
—  in  these  days  of  innovation,  one  is  compelled  to  do 
the  work  of  three. 

I  have  said  that  the  idea  is  universal.  Though  many 
deny  that  there  is  any  such  thing  as  fate,  and  others 
differ  in  the  views  they  take  of  it,  yet  we  all  have  a 
sufficiently  clear  idea  of  what  it  is,  to  write  about  it. 
(I  say  about  it,  if  not  upon  it.)  Some  would  at  once 
reject  the  term;  while  others  would  modify  its  signifi 
cance,  to  adapt  it  to  their  own  opinion. 

There  appear  to  have  been  those,  of  every  age  and 
nation,  who  have  risen  above  the  sensuous  conceptions 
of  the  multitude;  who,  satisfied  if  they  could  search 
out  the  causes  of  things,  by  the  mental  eye  alone,  have 
thus,  from  time  to  time,  rescued  small  fragments  of 
truth  from  the  general  wreck.  According  to  the  belief 
of  the  mass  of  the  Greeks,  three  sisters,  Clotho, 

[175] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Lachesis  and  Atropos,  presided  over  the  destinies  of 
men.  They  were  acquainted  with  the  Past,  the  Pres 
ent  and  the  Future,  and  are  represented  with  spindles, 
which  they  keep  constantly  in  motion,  —  spinning  the 
fate  of  mortals.  The  Romans  had.  their  Parcse,  and 
the  Northerns  their  Nornen.  These  sisters  were  either 
regarded  as  independent  powers,  —  the  originators  as 
well  as  executors  of  certain  inevitable,  though  not  im 
mutable  laws;  or,  as  some  supposed,  were  the  daugh 
ters  of  Jove,  and  acted  in  obedience  to  his  commands. 

Plato's  views  appear  to  have  been  more  correct. 
"All  things,"  says  he,  "are  in  fate,  i.e.,  within  its 
sphere  or  scheme,  —  but  all  things  are  not  fated :  it  is 
not  in  fate  that  one  man  shall  do  so  and  so,  and  another 
suffer  so  and  so;  for  that  would  be  the  destruction  of 
our  free  agency  and  liberty :  but  if  any  one  should  choose 
such  a  life,  and  do  such  and  such  things,  —  then  it  is 
in  fate  that  such  or  such  consequences  shall  ensue  upon 
it."  That  Socrates  did  not  adopt  the  popular  opinion 
is  evident  from  these  words  of  Cicero:  " Esse  Divinum 
quoddam,  quod  Socrates  dcemonium  appellat;  cui  semper 
ipse  paruerit,  —  nunquam  impellenti,  s&pe  revocanti" 
(Something  Divine  existed  which  Socrates  styled  his 
Daemon  and  ever  he  obeyed  its  voice,  —  never  urging 
him  on,  and  often  calling  him  back.) 

It  is  difficult  to  say  whether  in  the  popular  use  of  the 
word  at  the  present  day,  any  peculiar  or  even  precise 
meaning  is  attached  to  the  word  Fate.  Many  employ 
it  to  signify  the  necessary,  inevitable  operation  of  cer 
tain  fixed  laws,  which  were  originally  imposed  by  the 
Deity.  This  definition  corresponds  to  what  has  been 

[176] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

termed  Physical  Fate.  The  ancients  never  lost  sight  of 
an  invisible  agent  or  power,  independent  of  the  laws  of 
Nature.  The  point  at  issue  among  the  moderns  is, 
whether  the  Deity  fore-ordained,  or  merely  fore-knew 
(before  the  world  was  created)  what  was  to  happen  to 
his  creatures,  —  whether  Man  is  a  free  agent.  Such 
was  effatum  (decreed),  and  therefore  unavoidable,  said 
the  ancients.  Though  fated,  it  was  by  no  means  un 
avoidable,  say  we.  Whatever  is  effatum  is  fated,  said 
they.  Everything  or  nothing  is  fated,  —  yet  nothing 
is  effatum,  say  we. 

This  is  as  clear  a  statement  as  could  be  expected 
from  a  Junior  of  eighteen  in  college,  on  a  subject 
that  has  divided  the  beards  of  the  sages  for  thou 
sands  of  years.  Thoreau  returned  to  it  from  year 
to  year,  and  in  those  meditations  of  1839-40 
which  he  sent  to  Margaret  Fuller  for  her  "  Dial," 
in  December,  1840,  only  to  be  declined  with 
thanks,  he  said:  — 

Necessity  is  my  eastern  cushion,  on  which  I  recline. 
My  eye  revels  in  its  prospect,  as  in  the  summer  haze. 
I  ask  no  more  but  to  be  left  alone  with  it.  It  is  the 
bosom  of  Time,  and  the  lap  of  Eternity.  To  be  neces 
sary  is  to  be  needful;  and  necessity  is  only  another 
name  for  inflexibility  of  good.  How  I  welcome  my 
grim  fellow,  and  walk  arm  in  arm  with  him!  Let  me, 
too,  be  such  a  Necessity  as  he.  I  love  him,  he  is  so 
flexible,  and  yields  to  me  as  the  air  to  my  body.  I  greet 
thee,  my  elder  brother,  who  with  thy  touch  ennoblest 

[  177  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

all  things.  The  Romans  made  Fortune  surname  to  For 
titude;  since  Fortitude  is  that  alchemy  which  turns  all 
things  to  good  fortune.  Must  it  be  so?  then  it  is  good. 

Tumble  me  down,  and  I  will  sit 
Upon  my  ruins,  smiling  yet. 

In  October,  1836,  he  took  up  a  topic  less  diffi 
cult,  and  wrote  on  — 

XXV.  Compulsory  Education 

"Whether  the  Government  ought  to  educate  the 
Children  of  those  Parents  who  refuse  to  do  it 
Themselves?" 

I  maintain  that  the  Government  ought  to  provide 
for  the  education  of  all  children  who  would  otherwise 
be  brought  up  —  or  rather  grow  up  —  in  ignorance. 
In  the  first  place,  the  welfare  of  the  individual,  and  in 
the  second,  that  of  the  community,  demands  it.  It  is  as 
much  the  duty  of  the  parent  to  educate,  as  to  feed  and 
clothe  the  child.  For  on  what,  I  would  ask,  depends 
that  last  duty?  Why  is  the  child  to  be  fed  and  clothed, 
if  not  to  enable  him  to  receive  and  make  a  proper  use 
of  an  education?  an  education  which  he  is  no  better 
able  to  obtain  for  himself  than  he  is  to  supply  his 
physical  wants.  Indeed,  the  culture  of  the  physical  is 
important  only  so  far  as  it  is  subservient  to  that  of  the 
intellectual  man. 

No  one  disputes  this.  Should,  then,  poverty  or 
neglect  threaten  to  deprive  the  child  of  this  right,  —  a 
right  more  dear  and  more  worthy  to  be  cherished  and 
defended  than  any  he  can  enjoy,  —  in  such  a  case  it 

[  178] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

appears  to  me  to  be  the  duty  of  that  neighbor  whose 
circumstances  will  allow  of  it,  to  take  the  part  of  the 
child,  and  act  the  part  of  the  parent.  The  duty  in  this 
instance  amounts  to  a  moral  obligation,  and  is  as  much 
a  duty  as  it  is  to  preserve  the  life  of  the  infant  whose 
unnatural  parents  would  suffer  it  to  starve  by  the 
roadside.  What  can  it  profit  a  man  that  he  hath 
enough  to  eat  and  to  drink,  and  the  wherewithal  he 
may  be  clothed,  —  provided  he  lose  his  own  soul? 

But  as  these  wealthy  neighbors  can  accomplish  more 
good  by  acting  in  concert,  —  can  more  effectively 
relieve  the  unfortunate  by  a  community  of  good  offices, 
—  it  is  their  duty,  or  in  other  words  the  duty  of  the 
community,  so  to  do.  Thus  much  for  the  welfare  of  the 
child. 

That  such  a  course,  in  the  second  place,  is  consistent 
with,  nay,  necessary  to,  the  greatest  good  of  the  com 
munity,  scarcely  admits  of  a  doubt.  I  shall  not  under 
take  to  prove  that  the  community  ought  to  do  what 
is  fpr  its  own  good;  this  is  entirely  unnecessary,  since 
the  welfare  of  posterity  is  certainly  to  be  consulted. 

With  the  progress  of  opinion  in  the  fourscore 
years  since  this  argument  was  framed,  all  theo 
retic  objection  to  it  has  been  withdrawn  in  lands 
truly  civilized;  but  the  duty  is  practically  evaded 
in  many  lands  with  regard  to  the  races  held  to  be 
inferior  or  secondary,  like  the  Negroes  at  the 
South,  and  the  Indians  in  Mexico.  If  any  fault 
were  found  with  the  reasoning,  all  would  allow 

[  179  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

the  literary  form  to  be  good;  all  is  forcibly  and 
concisely  set  forth.  Not  less  is  this  true  of  the 
more  radical  thesis  which  follows. 


XXVI.  Barbarism  and  Civilization 

"The  Mark  or  Standard  by  which  a  Nation  is  judged 
to  be  Barbarous  or  Civilized.  Barbarities  of 
Civilized  States." 

The  justice  of  a  nation's  claim  to  be  regarded  as 
civilized  seems  to  depend  mainly  upon  the  degree  in 
which  Art  has  triumphed  over  Nature.  Civilization  is 
the  influence  of  Art,  and  not  Nature,  on  Man.  He 
mingles  his  own  will  with  the  unchanged  essences 
around  him,  and  becomes  in  his  turn  the  creature  of 
his  own  creations. 

The  end  of  life  is  education.  An  education  is  good 
or  bad  according  to  the  disposition  or  frame  of  mind  it 
induces.  If  it  tend  to  cherish  and  develope  the  religious 
sentiment,  —  continuously  to  remind  man  of  his  mys 
terious  relation  to  God  and  Nature,  —  and  to  exalt 
him  above  the  toil  and  drudgery  of  this  matter-of-fact 
world,  it  is  good. 

Civilization  we  think  not  only  does  not  accomplish 
this,  but  is  directly  adverse  to  it.  The  civilized  man  is 
the  slave  of  Matter.  Art  paves  the  earth,  lest  he  may 
soil  the  soles  of  his  feet;  it  builds  walls  that  he  may  not 
see  the  Heavens;  year  in,  year  out,  the  sun  rises  in  vain 
to  him;  the  rain  falls  and  the  wind  blows,  but  they  do 
not  reach  him.  From  his  wigwam  of  brick  and  mortar 
he  praises  his  Maker  for  the  genial  warmth  of  a  sun  he 

[180] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

never  saw,  or  the  fruitfulness  of  an  earth  he  disdains 
to  tread  upon.  Who  says  that  this  is  not  mockery? 
So  much  for  the  influence  of  Art. 

Our  rude  forefathers  took  liberal  and  enlarged  views 
of  things,  —  rarely  narrow  or  partial.  They  surren 
dered  up  themselves  wholly  to  Nature;  to  contemplate 
her  was  a  part  of  their  daily  food.  Was  she  stupen 
dous?  so  were  their  conceptions.  The  inhabitant  of  a 
mountain  can  hardly  be  brought  to  use  a  microscope; 
he  is  accustomed  to  embrace  empires  in  a  single  glance. 
Nature  is  continually  exerting  a  moral  influence  over 
man;  she  accommodates  herself  to  the  soul  of  man. 
Hence  his  conceptions  are  as  gigantic  as  her  mountains. 
We  may  see  an  instance  of  this  if  we  will  but  turn  our 
eyes  to  the  strongholds  of  Liberty,  —  Scotland,  Swit 
zerland  and  Wales.  What  more  stupendous  can  Art 
contrive  than  the  Alps?  What  more  sublime  than  the 
thunder  among  the  hills?  The  savage  is  far-sighted; 
his  eye,  like  the  Poet's,  — 

"Doth  glance  from  Heaven  to  Earth,  from  Earth  to  Heaven." 

He  looks  far  into  futurity,  wandering  as  familiarly 
through  the  Land  of  Spirits,  as  the  civilized  man 
through  his  woodlot  or  pleasure-grounds.  His  life  is 
practical  poetry,  a  perfect  epic.  The  earth  is  his  hunt 
ing-ground;  he  lives  summers  and  winters;  the  sun  is 
his  time-piece,  —  he  journeys  to  its  rising  or  its  setting; 
to  the  abode  of  Winter,  or  the  land  whence  Summer 
comes.  He  never  listens  to  the  thunder  but  he  is  re 
minded  of  the  Great  Spirit,  —  it  is  his  voice.  To  him 
the  lightning  is  less  terrible  than  it  is  sublime;  the 

[181] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

rainbow  less  beautiful  than  it  is  wonderful;  the  sun  less 
warm  than  it  is  glorious. 

The  savage  dies  and  is  buried;  he  sleeps  with  his 
forefathers,  and  before  many  winters  his  dust  returns 
to  dust  again,  and  his  body  is  mingled  with  the  ele 
ments.  The  civilized  man  can  scarce  sleep  even  in  his 
grave.  Not  even  there  are  the  weary  at  rest,  nor  do 
the  wicked  cease  from  troubling.  What  with  the  ham 
mering  of  stone,  and  the  grating  of  bolts,  the  worms 
themselves  are  wellnigh  deceived.  Art  rears  his  monu 
ment,  Learning  contributes  his  epitaph,  and  Interest 
adds  the  "Carey  fecit"  as  a  salutary  check  upon  the 
unearthly  emotions  which  a  perusal  might  otherwise 
excite. 

A  nation  may  be  ever  so  civilized,  and  yet  lack  wis 
dom.  Wisdom  is  the  result  of  education;  and  education 
being  the  bringing-out  or  development  of  that  which 
is  in  man,  by  contact  with  the  Not-me,  —  that  is  by 
Life,  —  is  far  safer  in  the  hands  of  Nature  than  of 
Art. 

The  savage  may  be,  and  often  is  a  sage.  Our  Indian 
is  more  of  a  man  than  the  inhabitant  of  a  city.  He 
lives  as  a  man,  he  thinks  as  a  man,  he  dies  as  a  man. 
The  latter,  it  is  true,  is  learned.  Learning  is  Art's 
creature,  but  it  is  not  essential  to  the  perfect  man;  it 
cannot  educate.  A  man  may  spend  days  in  the  study 
of  a  single  species  of  animalculce,  invisible  to  the 
naked  eye>  and  thus  become  the  founder  of  a  new 
branch  of  science,  —  without  having  advanced  the 
great  objects  for  which  life  was  given  him,  at  all.  The 
naturalist,  the  chemist,  the  mechanist  is  no  more  a 

[  1821 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

man  for  all  his  learning.  Life  is  still  as  short  as  ever, 
death  as  inevitable,  and  the  heavens  as  far  off. 

Here  in  1837  we  have  a  vivid  glimpse  of  the 
later  Thoreau  —  reviling  the  very  art  that  has 
given  him  the  rhetoric  with  which  to  denounce 
Art. 

"  Lowliness  is  young  Ambition's  ladder, 

Whereto  the  climber  upward  turns  his  face; 

But  when  he  once  attains  the  upmost  round, 

He  then  unto  the  ladder  turns  his  back, 

scorning  the  base  degrees 

By  which  he  did  ascend." 

He  has  mastered  his  art  at  last,  has  caught  his 
stride,  as  they  say,  and  has  entered  fully  into  the 
goodly  land  of  paradox. 

In  contrast  with  this  glorification  of  the  sav 
age,  and  criminal  indictment  against  civilization, 
ancient  and  modern,  take  this  fragment,  com 
posed  at  the  very  close  of  his  college  life  and  en 
dorsed,  "Thoreau,  June  10,  1837":  — 

XXVII.  Titus  Pomponius  Atticus,  as  an  Example 

One  cannot  safely  imitate  the  actions,  as  such,  even 
of  the  wise  and  good.  Truth  is  not  exalted,  but 
rather  degraded  and  soiled  by  contact  with  humanity. 
We  may  not  conform  ourselves  to  any  mortal  pattern, 
but  should  conform  our  every  act  and  thought  to 
Truth. 

[183] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Truth  is  that  whole  of  which  Virtue,  Justice,  Benev 
olence  and  the  like  are  the  parts,  the  manifestations; 
she  includes  and  runs  through  them  all.  She  is  con 
tinually  revealing  herself.  Why,  then,  be  satisfied 
with  the  mere  reflection  of  her  genial  warmth  and 
light?  why  dote  upon  her  faint  and  fleeting  echo,  if 
we  can  bask  in  her  sunshine,  and  hearken  to  her  reve 
lations  when  we  will?  No  man  is  so  situated  that  he 
may  not,  if  he  choose,  find  her  out;  and  when  he  has 
discovered  her,  he  may  without  fear  go  all  lengths 
with  her;  but  if  he  take  her  at  second  hand,  it  must 
be  done  cautiously ;  else  she  will  not  be  pure  and 
unmixed. 

Wherever  she  manifests  herself,  whether  in  God,  in 
man,  or  in  nature,  by  herself  considered,  she  is  equally 
admirable,  equally  inviting;  though  to  our  view  she 
seems,  from  her  relations,  now  stern  and  repulsive, 
now  mild  and  persuasive.  We  will  then  consider 
Truth  by  herself,  so  that  we  may  the  more  heartily 
adore  her,  and  more  confidently  follow  her. 

Next,  how  far  was  the  life  of  Atticus  a  manifestation 
of  Truth?  According  to  Nepos,  his  Latin  biographer: 
"He  so  carried  himself  as  to  seem  level  with  the  lowest, 
and  yet  equal  to  the  highest.  He  never  sued  for  any 
preferment  in  the  State,  because  it  was  not  to  be  ob 
tained  by  fair  and  honorable  means.  He  never  went 
to  law  about  anything.  He  never  altered  his  manner 
of  life,  though  his  estate  was  greatly  increased.  His 
complaisance  was  not  without  a  strict  regard  to 
truth." 

Truth  neither  exalteth  nor  humbleth  herself.  She  is 

[  184] 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

not  too  high  for  the  low,  nor  yet  too  low  for  the  high. 
She  never  stoops  to  what  is  mean  or  dishonorable.  She 
is  persuasive,  not  litigious,  leaving  Conscience  to  de 
cide.  Circumstances  do  not  affect  her.  She  never  sac- 
rificeth  her  dignity  that  she  may  secure  for  herself  a 
favorable  reception.  Thus  far  tl^e  example  of  Atticus 
may  safely  be  followed.  But  we  are  told,  on  the  other 
hand:  "That,  finding  it  impossible  to  live  suitably  to 
his  dignity  at  Rome,  without  offending  one  party  or 
the  other,  he  withdrew  to  Athens.  That  he  left  Italy 
that  he  might  not  bear  arms  against  Sylla.  That  he  so 
managed  by  taking  no  active  part,  as  to  secure  the  good 
will  of  both  Caesar  and  Pompey.  Finally,  that  he  was 
careful  to  avoid  even  the  appearance  of  crime." 

It  is  not  a  characteristic  of  Truth  to  use  men  tenderly, 
nor  is  she  over-anxious  about  appearances.  The  hon 
est  man,  according  to  George  Herbert,  —  is 

"He  that  doth  still  and  strongly  good  pursue, 
To  God,  his  neighbor  and  himself  most  true; 

Whom  neither  fear  nor  fawning  can 
Unpin,  or  wrench  from  giving  all  their  due. 

Who  rides  his  sure  and  even  trot, 
While  the  World  now  rides  by,  now  lags  behind. 

Who,  when  great  trials  come, 
'Nor  seeks  nor  shuns  them,  but  doth  always  stay 
Till  he  the  thing,  and  the  example  weigh; 

All  being  brought  into  a  sum, 
What  place  or  person  calls  for,  he  doth  pay." 

Atticus  seems  to  have  well  understood  the  maxim  ap 
plied  to  him  by  his  biographer,  —  "Sui  cuique  mores 
fingunt  fortunam."  (Character  shapes  his  lot  for  each 
of  us.) 

[185] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREATJ 

It  seems  odd  that  Henry  Thoreau,  poor,  ob 
scure,  in  a  small  Puritan  village,  should  have 
looked  to  see  how  a  Roman  plutocrat,  living  in 
luxury  and  by  usury,  waited  upon  by  slaves, 
and  more  Epicurean  than  Stoic,  could  serve  as  an 
example  for  one  who  went  to  prison  rather  than 
pay  a  small  tax  for  the  indirect  support  of  Ameri 
can  slavery.  But,  no  doubt,  Atticus,  with  all 
his  defects,  was  a  more  suitable  model  for  an  out 
door  life  than  Red  Jacket,  Black  Hawk,  Massa- 
soit,  or  Tecumseh.  The  ideal  Red  Man  of  Henry 
and  John  Thoreau  was  a  panegyrized  Tahatta- 
wan,  Sachem  of  the  Musketaquid,  to  whom  they 
erected  a  cenotaph  on  Fairhaven  Hill,  near  the 
present  villa  of  Mr.  Thompson,  with  this  inscrip 
tion  in  questionable  Latin:  — 

Siste,  qui  conscendis!  Hie  Filius  Naturae,  Tahatta- 
wan,  Sachimaupan,  extremus  Indorum,  venatus,  resi- 
piscatus  est.  Per  agros,  prata,  collemque  regnavit. 
At,  si  famse  credendum  est,  manus  non  longas  habuit. 
Homo,  Princeps,  Christianus,  quamvis  incultus,  non 
indeploratus.  In  moribus  scilicet  austerus,  et  sine 
levitate;  sermone  grandis,  venustus,  immo  etiam  modi- 
cus!!  Integritate,  fortitudineque  explorata,  prseclarus. 

Hie  Scopulus  ejus  est  Cenotaphium. 

Should  a  statue  of  Thoreau  ever  be  erected  in 
Concord,  these  cliffs,  where  the  brothers  com- 

[  186J 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

memorated  their  Indian  ideal,  would  be  the 
proper  place  for  it,  and  the  rock  itself  might  be 
carved  into  his  aquiline  features. 

No  such  encomium  on  the  American  Indian 
appeared  in  the  last  of  Thoreau's  college  essays, 

—  his  Commencement  Part,  which  was  an  analy 
sis  of  the  American  commercial  spirit  given  as 
one  half  of  a  ''Conference"  on  that  topic,  of 
which  his  roommate,  Henry  Vose,  gave  the  other 
half.    The  greater  portion  of  Thoreau's  half  is 
printed  in  his  volume  of  "Familiar  Letters"; 
but  a  few  passages  may  be  quoted  to  show  his 
settled  and  serious  style  at  the  age  of  twenty. 
It  was  given  August  16,  1837:  — 

The  characteristic  of  our  epoch  is  perfect  freedom, 

—  freedom  of  thought  and  action.    It  has  generated 
an  unusual  degree  of  energy  and  activity;  it  has  gen 
erated  the  Commercial  Spirit.  Man  thinks  faster  and 
freer  than  ever  before;  he  moves  faster  and  freer.  He 
is  more  restless  because  he  is  more  independent  than 
ever.  .  .  .  We  are  to  look  chiefly  for  the  origin  of  the 
commercial  spirit,  and  the  power  that  still  cherishes  { 
and  sustains  it,  in  a  blind  and  unmanly  love  of  wealth.  '• 
Wherever  this  exists,  it  is  too  sure  to  become  the  ruling 
spirit;  and  as  a  natural  consequence,  it  infuses  into  all 
our  thoughts  and  affections  a  degree  of  its  own  selfish 
ness;  we  become  selfish  in  our  patriotism,  selfish  in  our 
domestic  relations,  selfish  in  our  religion.  .  .  .  Yet  it  is 

[  187] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

not  altogether  and  without  exception  bad.  We  rejoice 
in  it  as  one  more  indication  of  the  entire  and  universal 
freedom  of  the  age  in  which  we  live,  —  an  indication 
that  the  human  race  is  making  one  more  advance  in 
that  infinite  series  of  progressions  which  awaits  it. 
Man  will  not  always  be  the  slave  of  Matter;  but  ere 
long,  casting  off  those  earth-born  desires  which  iden 
tify  him  with  the  brute,  shall  pass  the  days  of  his 
sojourn  in  this  his  nether  paradise,  as  becomes  the 
Lord  of  the  Creation. 

With  this  glowing  anticipation  of  an  age  which 
has  not  yet  arrived,  Thoreau  withdrew  to  Con 
cord,  whither  a  letter  from  James  Richardson, 
an  equally  enthusiastic  classmate,  followed  him 
three  weeks  later,  with  this  bit'of  information:  — 

I  hear  that  you  are  comfortably  located  in  your 
native  town,  as  the  guardian  of  its  children,  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  one  of  our  most  distinguished 
apostles  of  the  Future,  R.  W.  Emerson,  and  situated 
under  the  ministry  of  our  old  friend,  Rev.  Barzillai 
Frost.  I  hear  also  that  Concord  Academy,  lately  under 
the  care  of  Mr.  Phineas  Allen  of  Northfield,  is  now 
[Sept.  7]  vacant  of  a  Preceptor. 

For  this  vacancy  Richardson  offers  himself, 
"  should  Mr.  Hoar  find  it  difficult  to  get  a  scholar 
college-distinguished."  For  this  vacancy  Tho 
reau  was  not  even  considered,  probably;  for  he 
had  just  taken  charge  of  the  Town  Grammar 

f  188  1 


COLLEGE    ESSAYS 

School,  and  given  it  up  because  he  was  unwill 
ing  to  punish  its  pupils  by  whipping.  The 
Academy  building  soon  became  available  for 
the  private  school  of  John  and  Henry  Thoreau; 
but  in  the  interval  Henry  sought  occupation  as 
a  teacher  elsewhere. 


CHAPTER  V 

PENCIL-MAKING  SCHOOLMASTERS  AND   THEIR 
SCHOOL 

IT  has  been  the  direction  of  many  wise  and 
careful  fathers  that  their  sons,  even  if  destined 
for  the  governing  class,  or  the  learned  professions, 
should  also  have  a  handworking  occupation,  to 
fall  back  upon  in  an  emergency  or  for  the  inci 
dental  discipline  that  it  gives.  The  original  needs 
of  the  Thoreau  family  gave  a  pencil-making  trade 
to  both  John  and  Henry,  as  boys;  and  during  the 
decade  1830-40  the  trade  name  of  these  pencil- 
makers  was  "J.  Thoreau  and  Sons."  John  hap 
pened  to  be  also  a  natural  teacher  and  an  agree 
able  head  of  a  school;  in  the  latter  capacity  more 
naturally  gifted  than  Henry;  so  that  when  John 
withdrew  in  ill  health  from  their  Concord  School 
(1841),  in  the  large  building  on  Academy  Lane, 
Henry  also  gave  it  up.  Before  it  was  begun,  how 
ever,  in  1838,  and  at  intervals  after  its  close,  both 
brothers  engaged  in  pencil-making,  in  which 
Henry  had  great  skill  and  much  chemical  knowl 
edge.  But  Henry  had  tried  for  a  school  in  Maine 
on  several  occasions,  and  the  two  brothers  had 

\  190  1 


PENCIL-MAKING   TEACHERS 

planned  an  excursion  westward,  as  far  as  Ken 
tucky,  hoping  either  for  a  joint  school,  such  as 
they  taught  in  Concord  for  three  years,  or  for 
separate  schools  not  far  apart,  such  as  Carlyle 
and  his  friend  Edward  Irving  had  for  a  time  near 
Edinburgh. 

Henry  left  college  with  his  spirit  of  independ 
ence  and  opposition  more  fully  developed  than 
when  he  entered.  In  this  particular  he  differed 
much  from  his  seniors,  Alcott  and  Emerson;  and 
it  gave  to  his  conversation  a  tone  that  his  ortho 
dox  sister  Helen  thought  required  some  soften 
ing.  Her  remarks  led  Henry  to  suspend  his  let 
ters  to  her,  which  he  thus  explained  in  a  letter 
of  October,  1837,  which  Emerson  copied  for  his 
volume  of  Thoreau's  "Letters  and  Poems,"  but 
omitted  to  print,  and  turned  it  and  some  of  the 
poems  over  to  me.  Henry  wrote:  — 

For  a  man  to  act  himself  he  must  be  perfectly  free; 
otherwise  he  is  in  danger  of  losing  all  sense  of  responsi-     1 1 
bility  or  self-respect.    When  such  a  state  of  things  ex-     / 
ists  that  the  sacred  opinions  one  advances  in  argu 
ment  are  apologized  for  by  his  friends,  before  his  face, 
lest  his  hearers  receive  a  wrong  impression  of  the  man; 

—  when  such  gross  injustice  is  of  frequent  occurrence, 

—  where  shall  we  look,  and  not  look  in  vain,  for  men, 
deeds,  thoughts?  As  well  apologize  for  the  grape  that 

[  191] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

it  is  sour,  or  the  thunder  that  it  is  noisy,  or  the  light 
ning  that  it  tarries  not. 

Yet  this  gentle  elder  sister  had  brought  his 
young  disciple  to  Emerson's  intimacy  by  showing 
him  (through  another,  Mrs.  Emerson's  sister) 
a  passage  in  her  brother's  new  Journal  of  1837 
which  indicated  "the  same  thought,  the  same 
spirit"  that  was  naturally  in  both  the  Poet- 
Philosopher  and  the  younger  Poet-Naturalist. 
That  Journal,  begun  October  20,  1837,  ran  to 
546  pages,  and  was  long  since  destroyed,  after 
excerpts  from  it  had  been  made  for  "The  Ser 
vice,"  the  "Raleigh,"  the  "Week,"  and  "Wai- 
den."  It  did  not,  seemingly,  contain  many  of 
the  original  verses;  these  were  probably  entered 
in  a  "long  Red  Book,"  of  which  no  index  survives. 
But  I  have  the  index  of  this  prose  Journal,  of 
which  I  give  here  some  specimens:  — 

Oct.  24.  The  Mould  our  Deeds  leave.  Every  part  of 
nature  teaches  that  the  passing  away  of  one  life  is  the 
making  room  for  another.  The  Oak  dies  down  to  the 
ground,  leaving  within  its  rind  a  rich  virgin  mould, 
which  will  impart  a  vigorous  life  to  an  infant  forest. 
The  pine  leaves  a  sandy  and  sterile  soil;  the  harder 
woods  a  strong  and  fruitful  mould.  So  this  constant 
abrasion  and  decay  makes  the  soil  of  my  future 
growth. 

[  192  1 


HELEN  THOREAU 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

Oct.  29.  Two  Ducks  at  Goose  Pond,  of  the  summer 
or  wood  species,  which  were  merrily  dabbling  in  their 
favorite  basin,  struck  up  a  retreat  on  my  approach, 
paddling  off  with  swan-like  majesty.  They  dove  every 
minute  or  two,  and  swam  several  feet  under  water,  to 
escape  our  attention.  They  seemed  to  give  each  other 
a  significant  nod,  —  and  then,  as  if  by  a  common  un 
derstanding,  't  was  heels  up  and  head  down  in  the 
shaking  of  a  duck's  wing.  When  they  reappeared,  it 
was  significant  to  observe  with  what  a  self-satisfied, 
"darn-it-how-he-nicks-'em"  air,  they  paddled  off  to 
repeat  the  experiment. 

Nov.  3.  Sailing  with  and  against  the  Stream.  If  one 
would  reflect,  let  him  embark  on  some  placid  stream, 
and  float  with  the  current.  As  we  ascend  the  stream, 
plying  the  paddle  with  might  and  main,  snatched  and 
impetuous  thoughts  course  through  the  brain.  We 
dream  of  conflict,  power  and  grandeur.  But  turn  the 
prow  down  stream,  and  rock,  tree,  kine,  knoll,  assum 
ing  new  and  varying  positions,  as  wind  and  water 
shift  the  scene,  favor  the  liquid  lapse  of  thought,  far- 
reaching  and  sublime,  but  ever  calm  and  gently  undu 
lating. 

Sunday,  March  4.  Here  at  my  elbow  sit  five  notable, 
or  at  least  noteworthy  representatives  of  this  19th 
century,  of  the  gender  feminine.  One  a  sedate,  inde 
fatigable  knitter,  not  spinster  [Mrs.  Colonel  Ward],  of 
the  old  school,  who  had  the  supreme  felicity  to  be 
born  in  days  that  tried  men's  souls.  .  .  .  Opposite, 

[  193  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

across  this  stone  hearth,  sits  one  of  no  school,  but  one 
who  schools  [Louisa  Dunbar]  —  a  spinster  who  spins 
not,  with  elbow  resting  on  the  Book  of  Books.  I 
marked  how  she  spurned  that  innocent  everyday 
book,  "Germany,  by  De  Stael,"  as  though  a  viper  had 
stung  her;  —  better  to  rest  the  elbow  on  The  Book  than 
the  eye  on  such  a  page. 

(The  other  three  were  probably  Miss  Prudence 
Ward,  Mrs.  Thoreau,  and  Maria.) 

In  1837  Henry  had  one  or  two  of  his  vexatious 
affairs  with  some  of  his  townsmen,  if  we  may 
trust  the  not  always  exact  statements  of  Chan- 
ning.  Thoreau  himself  wrote  in  his  Journal  for 
December,  1855,  "Kept  town  school  for  a  fort 
night  in  1837(?),"  which  must  have  been  in 
September.  Channing  writes:  — 

An  early  experience  was  the  Town  School,  which  he 
took  after  leaving  college,  announcing  that  he  should 
not  flog,  but  would  talk  morals  as  a  punishment  in 
stead.  A  fortnight  sped  glibly  along,  when  a  knowing 
Deacon,  one  of  the  school  committee,  walked  in  and 
told  him  that  he  must  use  the  ferule,  or  the  school 
would  spoil.  So  he  did,  —  feruling  six  of  his  pupils 
after  school;  one  of  whom  was  the  maid-servant  in  his 
own  house.  But  it  did  not  suit  well  with  his  conscience; 
and  he  reported  to  the  Committee  that  he  should  no 
longer  keep  their  school  if  they  interfered  with  his 
arrangements;  they  could  keep  it. 

[  194] 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

Naturally  this  would  excite  unfavorable  com 
ment,  as  his  accidentally  setting  Deacon  Wheel 
er's  woods  on  fire  did  in  1844,  and  his  refusal  to 
pay  taxes  to  support  slavery  did  in  1846;  and  as 
no  doubt  he  did  when  he  "signed  off"  from  Dr. 
Ripley's  First  Parish,  and  thus  exempted  him 
self  from  church  attendance  and  church  taxes. 
This  was  that  same  eventful  year,  1837-38,  when 
he  sang  Emerson's  Hymn  at  the  dedication  of 
the  Battle  Monument,  July  4;  had  a  part  at 
Commencement;  became  intimate  with  Emer 
son;  began  to  keep  a  regular  journal;  and  had 
other  native  experiences. 

His  first  real  business  after  leaving  college  was 
to  aid  his  father  in  the  pencil-factory,  as  he  had 
done  in  some  way  in  1836.  But  then  it  became 
clear  to  him  that,  of  several  vocations  that  he 
might  practise,  and  afterwards  did,  teaching  came 
easiest  to  him,  and  he  began  to  look  for  a  school. 
In  one  of  his  collegiate  paradoxes  he  had  written: 

What  we  regard  as  a  tendency  to  extremes  is  often  a 
tendency  to  the  extremely  true.  This  is  peculiarly  the 
case  when  men,  having  discovered  a  truth,  fear  to 
follow  it  out,  lest  they  go  to  extremes.  The  truth  is, 
Truth  is  extremely  far  from  Falsehood;  and  as  mankind 
manage  to  preserve  a  happy  medium  between  the  two, 
they  are  at  a  considerable  distance  from  either. 

I  195] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

But  Truth  leads  directly  to  action;  she  calls  for  a 
practical  application.  In  satisfying  this  demand,  men 
are  most  likely  to  err.  Truth  pursues  so  straight  a 
course  in  the  outset,  that  men  take  it  for  granted  she 
never  deviates  from  a  right  line.  The  human  mind, 
with  Truth  in  prospect,  may  be  likened  to  a  vibrating 
pendulum.  A  perpendicular  position  was  to  be  at 
tained;  but  such  was  the  impulse  originally  given,  that 
it  continues  for  a  long  time  to  assume  an  infinite  vari 
ety  of  positions,  each  successively  nearer  the  required 
one,  ere  the  force  of  gravity  can  overcome  the  foreign 
influence,  and  induce  rest. 

This  is  an  ingenious  parable,  foreshowing  the 
successive  positions  in  life  assumed  by  Henry 
Thoreau,  before  he  reached  that  one  best  adapted 
to  his  peculiar  genius,  and  giving  him  the  exact 
blend  of  activity  and  leisure  that  his  health  re 
quired.  Far  from  being  the  robust  person  that 
Emerson's  view  of  his  spiritual  strength  implies, 
he  was  of  rather  a  frail  constitution,  and  was 
often  ill,  as  we  see  by  his  letters  and  diaries.  After 
a  boyhood  of  domestic  industry  and  active  sport, 
he  took  up  school-teaching  (as  so  many  men  of 
letters  have  done);  on  which  he  thus  expressed 
himself  in  the  script  just  quoted:  "If  we  engage 
in  teaching  from  proper  motives,  we  shall  invari 
ably  make  it  a  permanent  profession;  those  who 
do  otherwise  regard  it  as  a  means.  And  this  they 

[  196  1 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

may  safely  do,  if  as  a  means  to  something  higher. 
But  no,  —  their  end  is  within,  not  beyond  their 
means;  the  end  was  soon  attained,  and  the  means 
neglected."  This  is  a  short  history,  but  not  the 
whole  story  of  the  Thoreau  school-keeping. 

The  four  sons  and  daughters  of  this  rare  house 
hold  were  naturally  teachers,  —  Henry  less  gifted 
in  that  way,  perhaps,  than  his  brother  John,  or 
his  elder  sister  Helen.  Grace  of  manner  was 
hardly  a  trait  of  Henry  at  any  time,  though  he 
was  of  inbred  courtesy  and  gravely  considerate, 
as  I  have  seen  in  many  instances.  Helen,  who 
resembled  in  aspect  her  aunt  Louisa  Dunbar, 
was  noted  for  the  grace  of  her  manners  and  her 
social  gift  —  which  Sophia  had  in  a  less  degree. 
In  Concord,  Helen  taught  music,  in  which  all 
the  household  were  gifted  —  Henry  and  his 
mother  both  singing  a  good  part  in  youth.  The 
parents  of  Helen's  pupils  valued  her  also  as  an 
example  to  them  in  politeness.  John,  next  in  age 
to  Helen,  was  a  person  of  affable  and  attractive 
manners,  though  direct  and  frank  of  speech,  and 
independent  in  opinion. 

I  have  had  in  my  hands  for  years,  through 
the  kindness  of  the  Ward  family  of  Spencer, 
Massachusetts,  the  correspondence  of  Mrs.  Col 
onel  Joseph  Ward,  widow  of  a  Boston  Revolu- 

[  197] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

tionary  officer,  and  her  daughter,  Miss  Prudence 
Ward.  These  ladies  were  for  more  than  a  dozen 
years,  after  1833,  residents  of  Concord  Village, 
and  intimate  with  all  branches  of  the  Thoreau 
family;  with  some  of  whom  they  usually  resided 
and  whose  political  views  they  shared.  From 
1835,  when  John  Thoreau  left  the  Shattuck 
house,  he  and  his  children  lived  in  the  family 
house  on  the  Square,  and  it  was  from  the  bridge 
on  the  Lowell  road  that  Henry  made  his  early 
voyage  in  the  Red  Jacket,  in  August,  1836.  When 
they  moved  into  the  Parkman  house,  at  the  Sud- 
bury  Corner  the  Wards  went  with  them.  There 
Henry  planted  melons  and  made  pencils,  in  the 
sale  of  which  he  had  visited  New  York  with  his 
father  in  1836.  In  the  autumn  of  1837  he  stayed 
at  home  and  journalized,  indexing  his  thoughts 
in  the  Journal  above  mentioned,  his  first  large 
manuscript  volume,  as  thus :  — 

Reflection  in  still  water,  P.  10;  Our  action  relieved 
against  the  sky,  11;  Value  of  the  Actual,  12;  Approach 
of  Evening  on  the  Water,  15;  A  day  in  a  Swamp,  16; 
Landscape  through  a  Tumbler,  17;  Sphericity,  19 ;  Chief 
stress  on  Likeness,  23;  The  meeting  of  Men,  25;  Books 
and  History,  26;  Friendliness  of  Music,  31;  The  Drum 
at  night,  31;  Tent  life,  38;  Dogs  baying  the  Moon,  42; 
Inspiration  of  the  Body,  43,  48;  etc. 

[  198  ] 


PRUDENCE  BIRD  WARD  (MRS.  JOSEPH   WARD)  AT    TWENTY-ONE 
From  a  Miniature 


PENCIL-MAKING   TEACHERS 

This  passage,  no  doubt,  answered  in  the  Jour 
nal  to  the  index  of  "Sphericity":  — 

The  brave  man  is  a  perfect  sphere,  which  cannot  fall 
on  its  flat  side,  and  is  equally  strong  every  way.  The 
coward  is  wretchedly  spheroidal  at  best,  too  much  edu 
cated  or  drawn  out  on  one  side,  and  depressed  on  the 
other.  .  .  .  We  shall  not  attain  to  be  spherical  by  lying 
on  one  or  the  other  side  for  an  eternity,  but  only  by 
resigning  ourselves  implicitly  to  the  law  of  gravity  in 
us,  shall  we  find  our  axis  coincident  with  the  celestial 
axis;  and  by  revolving  incessantly  through  all  circles, 
acquire  a  perfect  sphericity.  Mankind,  like  the  Earth, 
revolve  mainly  from  west  to  east,  and  so  are  flattened 
at  the  poles.  But  does  not  Philosophy  give  hint  of  a 
movement  commencing  to  be  rotary  at  the  poles  too, 
which  in  a  millennium  will  have  acquired  increased 
rapidity,  and  help  restore  an  equilibrium? 

This  appears  in  my  edition  of  the  "Service" 
(1902)  and  was  a  part  of  that  manuscript  which 
I  read  to  the  School  of  Philosophy,  and  to  an 
audience  at  my  house,  in  1881,  at  which,  for  the 
last  time,  met  Alcott,  Emerson,  Louisa  Alcott, 
and  Walt  Whitman,  —  the  latter  visiting  me 
that  September.  The  letter  of  Margaret  Fuller 
praising  and  rejecting  it  from  the  "Dial"  in 
January,  1841,  was  also  read  on  that  occasion. 

In  March,  1838,  Thoreau  was  looking  toward 
[  199  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Kentucky  for  a  place  to  find  pupils,  and  wrote 
to  his  brother  at  Taunton:  — 

Suppose  we  should  start  in  company  for  the  West 
and  there  either  establish  a  school  jointly,  or  procure 
ourselves  separate  situations.  Go  I  must,  at  all  events. 
It  is  high  season  to  start.  The  canals  are  now  open, 
and  travelling  comparatively  cheap.  I  think  I  can 
borrow  the  cash  in  this  town.  There's  nothing  like 
trying. 

This  Kentucky  adventure  was  suggested  by 
Dr.  Edward  Jarvis,  a  physician  of  Concord  birth 
and  education,  who  had  settled  at  Louisville,  as 
a  good  place  for  a  family  doctor;  but  who  soon 
became  a  specialist  in  nervous  and  mental  dis 
ease,  and  had  much  fame  as  a  statistical  author. 
The  journey  was  never  taken,  for  reasons  that 
may  be  found  in  Miss  Ward's  letters  to  her  sis 
ter,  Mrs.  Edmund  Sewall,  of  Scituate,  who,  as 
Caroline  Ward,  had  married  a  first  cousin  of  Mrs. 
Bronson  Alcott,  not  yet  a  resident  of  Concord:  — 

March,  1838.  Mrs.  John  Thoreau's  children  are 
soon  to  leave  her;  Helen  and  Sophia  to  keep  school  in 
Roxbury,  and  John  and  Henry  to  go  West.  They  pur 
pose  instructing  there,  but  have  no  fixed  plan.  They 
will  go  as  far  as  Louisville  in  Kentucky,  unless  em 
ployment  can  be  found  nearer.  .  .  .  To-day,  April  13, 
Henry  has  had  a  letter  from  President  Quincy,  of 

[  200  ] 


PENCIL-MAKING   TEACHERS 

Harvard,  speaking  of  a  school  in  Alexandria,  Virginia, 
to  be  opened  the  5th  of  May.  He  is  willing  to  take  it, 
and  if  accepted,  this  may  alter  or  delay  their  journey. 
(May  2.)  Mr.  Thoreau  has  begun  to  prepare  his  gar 
den,  and  I  have  been  digging  the  flower-beds.  Henry 
has  left  us  this  morning,  to  try  and  obtain  a  school  at 
the  eastward  (in  Maine).  John  has  taken  one  in  West 
Roxbury.  Helen  is  in  another  part  of  Roxbury,  estab 
lishing  herself  in  a  boarding  and  day-school.  Sophia 
will  probably  be  wanted  there  as  an  assistant;  so  the 
family  are  disposed  of.  I  shall  miss  the  juvenile  mem 
bers  very  much;  for  they  are  the  most  important  part 
of  the  establishment. 

Henry's  trip  to  Maine  was  interesting  to  him 
in  its  incidents,  and  as  making  him  better  ac 
quainted  with  his  cousins  at  Bangor,  the  Lowells 
and  Thatchers,  descendants  of  John  Thoreau  the 
Jerseyman  and  Jeanie  Burns,  of  Scotch  Stirl 
ingshire.  But  no  school  could  be  found  there, 
and  the  two  brothers  decided  to  open  a  private 
school  in  their  father's  Parkman  house,  which 
was  spacious  and  central  in  the  village.  It  began 
with  a  few  pupils  before  John  returned  from  West 
Roxbury,  but  was  under  his  direct  charge,  while 
Henry  taught  Latin,  Greek,  and  French,  and  the 
higher  mathematics,  if  called  for.  It  increased 
in  numbers  so  fast  that  the  next  year  it  was  re 
moved  to  the  building  in  Academy  Lane,  the 

[  201  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

regular  school  in  which  was  given  up,  when  Mr. 
Allen,  who  had  taught  there,  took  charge  of  a 
school  at  Northfield  in  the  Connecticut  Valley. 
An  important  person  as  it  proved,  Miss  Ellen 
Sewall,  a  niece  of  Miss  Ward,  visited  her  aunt 
and  grandmother  at  Concord,  in  the  summer  of 
1838,  and  her  brother  Edmund  became  a  pupil 
of  the  Thoreaus  that  year.  The  next  year  (April 
5,  1839)  in  a  letter  to  one  of  his  aunts,  he  makes 
the  first  mention  I  have  seen  of  the  famous 
boat:  — 

I  am  going  to  school  in  Concord  to  a  Mr.  Thoreau, 
who  is  a  very  pleasant  schoolmaster.  Saturdays  we  do 
nothing  but  write  compositions.  I  have  been  out  to 
sail  once  in  Mr.  Thoreau's  boat.  He  has  a  very  good 
boat,  which  he  and  his  brother  built  themselves.  The 
river  was  high,  and  we  sailed  very  fast  a  part  of  the 
way. 

The  school  had  begun  in  June,  1838,  with  four 
boys  from  Boston,  boarding  at  the  Parkman 
house.  On  June  29,  Miss  Ward  wrote:  — 

There  are  four  boys  from  Boston  boarding  with  us. 
I  want  Ellen  Sewall  should  make  us  a  visit  of  a  week  or 
two.  Henry's  melons  are  flourishing;  he  has  over  60 
hills,  and  we  are  likely  to  have  an  abundance.  Our 
flower-garden  looks  very  gay. 

[  202  ] 


MISS  PRUDENCE  WARD 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

July  8,  Henry  wrote  offering  to  take  a  vaca 
tion  when  John  had  his,  the  first  of  August,  — 
showing  that  his  reputation,  rather  than  John's, 
set  the  school  going  and  that  there  was  a  fifth 

boy  engaged;  adding  this:  — 

^  / 

I  am  in  school  from  8  to  12  in  the  morning,  and  from 
2  to  4  P.M.  After  that  I  read  a  little  Greek  or  English, 
or  for  variety,  take  a  stroll  in  the  woods.  We  have  not 
had  such  a  year  for  berries  this  long  time,  —  the  earth 
is  actually  blue  with  them.  High  blueberries,  three 
kinds  of  low,  thimble  and  raspberries  constitute  my 
diet  at  present.  Among  my  deeds  of  charity  I  may 
reckon  the  picking  of  a  cherry-tree  for  two  helpless 
single  ladies  who  live  under  the  hill. 

This  may  illustrate  what  Channing  afterward 
said  of  "  Henry's  edible  religion." 

It  was  a  school  only  for  boys,  and  it  adopted 
some  of  Mr.  Alcott's  new  rules  with  regard  to 
amusements,  walks,  and  punishments.  One  of 
the  Concord  boys,  the  late  Henry  Warren,  in 
later  years  at  Chicago,  has  preserved  for  me  many 
memories  of  this  Thoreau  School,  which  he  en 
tered  at  the  age  of  twelve.  It  soon  became  popu 
lar,  and  received  all  the  pupils  there  was  space 
for  in  the  rooms  of  the  Academy  but  a  few  rods 
from  the  home  of  the  instructors.  When  a  boy 
applied  for  admission,  John  Thoreau  would  ques- 

[203  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

tion  him  thus,  "  You  say  you  would  like  to  enter 
our  school;  why  do  you  wish  that?"  The  boy 
would  reply  that  he  wished  or  his  father  wished 
him  to  study  Latin,  Greek,  algebra,  geometry, 
surveying,  etc.,  which  he  heard  were  taught  there. 
John  would  then  say, "  If  you  really  wish  to  study 
those  things,  we  can  teach  you,  if  you  will  obey 
our  rules  and  promise  to  give  your  mind  to  your 
studies;  but  if  you  come  to  idle  and  play,  or  to 
see  other  boys  study,  we  shall  not  want  you  for  a 
pupil.  Do  you  promise,  then,  to  do  what  we  re 
quire?  if  so,  we  will  do  our  best  to  teach  you  what 
we  know  ourselves." 

The  boy  would  promise;  then  if  he  was  idle  or 
mischievous,  he  was  reminded  that  he  had  broken 
his  word;  but  physical  penalties  were  but  little 
resorted  to.  One  new  feature  was  a  weekly  walk 
in  the  woods  or  pastures,  or  a  sail  or  row  on  the 
river,  or  a  swim  in  one  of  the  ponds  of  the  town 
ship,  Walden  or  White  or  Bateman's  Pond;  and 
there  was  much  instructive  talk  about  the  In 
dians  who  formerly  lived  or  hunted  there.  The 
large  boat  which  the  brothers  had  built  in  the 
early  spring  of  1839,  near  the  steam  mill,  not  far 
from  my  present  house  and  garden,  was  often 
used  in  these  excursions. 

In  one  of  the  voyages  downstream  toward 
[  204  ] 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

Ball's  Hill  and  Carlisle  Bridge,  Mr.  Warren  re 
membered  an  instance  of  Henry's  close  observa 
tion  in  the  matter  of  Indian  antiquities,  of  which 
both  brothers  early  became  connoisseurs.  As 
they  were  sailing  through  the  Great  Meadows, 
past  Ball's  Hill,  where  Mr.  Brewster  has  since 
made  his  woodland  preserve  for  migrating  birds, 
Henry  Thoreau  called  attention  to  a  spot  on  the 
river-shore,  where  he  fancied  the  Indians  had 
made  their  fires,  and  perhaps  had  a  fishing  vil 
lage.  There,  he  said,  if  he  had  a  spade,  he  could 
perchance  uncover  one  of  their  rude  fireplaces. 
"We  cannot  find  one  to-day,  for  we  have  no 
spade;  but  the  next  time  we  come  I  will  see  if 
that  was  the  place  of  habitation."  Coming  to 
land  there  the  next  week,  they  drew  the  boat  to 
shore,  and  moved  up  the  bank  a  little  way.  "  Do 
you  see,"  said  Henry,  "anything  here  that  would 
be  likely  to  attract  Indians  to  this  spot?"  One 
boy  said,  "Why,  here  is  the  river  for  their  fish 
ing";  another  pointed  to  the  woodland  near  by, 
which  could  give  them  game.  "Well,  is  there 
anything  else?"  pointing  out  a  small  rivulet  that 
must  come,  he  said,  from  a  spring  not  far  off, 
which  could  furnish  water  cooler  than  the  river 
in  summer;  and  a  hillside  above  it  that  would 
keep  off  the  north  and  northwest  wind  in  winter. 

f  205  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

'  Then,  moving  inland  a  little  farther,  and  look 
ing  carefully  about,  he  struck  in  his  spade  several 
times,  without  result.  Presently,  when  the  boys 
began  to  think  their  young  teacher  and  guide  was 
mistaken,  his  spade  struck  a  stone.  Moving  for 
ward  a  foot  or  two,  he  set  his  spade  in  again, 
struck  another  stone,  and  began  to  dig  in  a  circle. 
He  soon  uncovered  the  red,  fire-marked  stones 
of  the  long-disused  Indian  fireplace;  thus  proving 
that  he  had  been  right  in  his  conjecture.  Having 
settled  the  point,  he  carefully  covered  up  his  find 
and  replaced  the  turf,  —  not  wishing  to  have  the 
domestic  altar  of  the  aborigines  profaned  by 
mere  curiosity. 

On  another  walk  he  suddenly  stopped,  knelt 
down,  and  examined  the  ground  with  some  care; 
then,  plucking  a  minute  something,  he  asked 
Henry  Warren  if  he  could  see  that?  "Yes,  — 
but  what  about  it?"  Drawing  his  microscope, 
Thoreau  showed  the  boy  that,  thus  magnified, 
this  little  thing  was  a  perfect  flower,  just  then 
in  the  season  of  its  blossoming;  and  he  went  on 
to  say  that  he  had  become  so  well  acquainted 
with  the  flowers,  large  and  small,  of  Concord  and 
Acton  and  Lincoln,  that  without  looking  in  the 
almanac,  he  could  tell  by  the  blooming  of  the 
flowers  in  what  month  he  was.  All  this  with  no 

[  206  ] 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

evident  wish  to  display  his  own  superior  knowl 
edge,  but  only  to  impress  on  the  youthful  mind 
how  immense  is  the  sum  of  Nature's  activities, 
and  to  impart  to  others  his  own  skill  in  such  mat 
ters. 

This  trait  could  not  fail  to  be  noticed  by  the 
friendly  pen  of  Channing,  who,  in  that  wonder- 
book  of  quotations,  his  final  Life  of  Thoreau, 
says:  — 

Never  in  too  much  hurry  for  a  dish  of  gossip,  he 
could  sit  out  the  oldest  frequenter  of  the  barroom  [so 
could  Hawthorne]  and  was  alive  from  top  to  toe  with 
curiosity.  But  if  he  learned,  so  he  taught,  and  says,  "I 
could  take  one  or  twenty  into  partnership,  gladly  shar 
ing  my  gains."  On  his  return  from  a  journey,  he  not 
only  emptied  his  pack  of  flowers,  shells,  seeds,  and 
other  treasures,  but  liberally  contributed  every  fine  or 
pleasant  or  desirable  experience  to  those  who  needed, 
as  the  milkweed  distributes  its  lustrous,  silken  seeds. 
Connected  with  this  was  his  skill  in  asking  questions, 
—  a  natural  talent,  long  cultivated.  Ever  on  the  search 
for  knowledge,  he  lived  to  get  information;  and  as  I 
am  so  far  like  Alfieri  that  I  have  almost  no  curios 
ity,  I  once  said  to  him  how  surprised  I  was  at  the  per 
sistence  of  this  trait  in  him.  "What  else  is  there  in 
life?"  was  his  reply.  He  did  not  end  in  this  search 
with  farmers,  nor  the  broadcloth  world;  he  knew 
another  class  of  men,  who  hang  on  the  outskirts  of 
society,  —  those  who  love  grog  and  are  never  to  be 

[  207  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

seen  abroad  without  a  fishpole  or  a  gun  in  their  hands, 
—  with  elfish  locks  and  of  a  community  with  Nature 
not  to  be  surpassed.  They  lived  more  outdoors  than 
he  did,  and  faced  more  mud  and  water  without  flinch 
ing;  sitting  all  day  in  the  puddles  like  frogs,  with  a  line 
in  the  river,  catching  pouts,  or  wading  mid-leg  in 
marshes  to  shoot  woodcock.  I  never  knew  him  to  go 
by  this  class  without  the  due  conversation.  They  had 
a  sort  of  Indian  or  gypsy  life,  and  he  loved  to  get  this 
at  second  hand.  He  had  sufficient  innocence  for  both 
sides  in  these  interviews. 

Mr.  Warren  went  on  to  say  that,  out  of  school, 
and  for  years  after,  he  would  take  the  trouble  to 
answer  any  question  of  his  pupils  whom  he  might 
meet  with  their  problems;  and  if  he  could  not 
solve  them  at  once,  he  would  take  the  question 
home,  and  give  them  the  answer  the  next  time 
he  met  the  young  inquirer.  Being  asked  why 
so  interesting  a  school  was  given  up,  Mr.  Warren 
said  that  the  health  of  John  Thoreau  began  to 
fail,  in  the  family  pulmonary  disease,  and  he 
withdrew  on  that  account*  from  the  school  in  the 
Academy,  which  could  not  be  carried  on  without 
him,  who  was  its  real  head;  although  Henry,  from 
his  collegiate  studies,  taught  the  more  advanced 
pupils.  Both  were  equally  interested  in  Indian 
life,  and  John  had  made  many  collections  of  im 
plements,  weapons,  etc.,  at  Taunton  in  the  Old 

[  208  ] 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

Colony,  where  they  were  as  abundant  as  in  Con 
cord,  and  in  which  region  fragments  of  the  Indian 
tribes  much  longer  remained  —  indeed,  are  yet  to 
be  found  there. 

In  September,  1838,  the  two  brothers  were 
teaching  together,  in  great  amity,  as  they  always 
lived;  but  in  the  village  there  was  a  prejudice, 
slight  or  strong,  against  a  youth  like  Henry,  just 
one-and-twenty,  who  had  so  much  independence 
of  thought  and  action.  The  number  of  pupils 
gained  under  John;  for  it  was  found  that  a  boy 
learned  more  in  a  month  at  the  Thoreau  School 
than  at  the  Town  School  under  the  Freemasons' 
Lodge,  where  inattention,  mischief,  and  whip 
ping  were  in  vogue.  It  was  no  uncommon  thing 
for  three  or  four  boys  there  to  be  "kept  after 
school"  for  idleness  or  roguery,  and  to  be  soundly 
whipped  by  the  strong-armed  master,  selected, 
in  part,  for  his  muscular  potency.  The  Thoreaus 
never  whipped;  they  made  the  "recess"  half  an 
hour  long,  instead  of  the  traditional  ten  minutes; 
they  opened  the  school  windows  and  ventilated 
the  room,  so  that  the  boys  came  back  to  fresh 
air,  after  playing  heartily  with  one  of  the  teachers. 
Upon  occasion,  John  or  Henry  stopped  the  dull 
recitation,  and  told  a  story,  or  conveyed  a  pleas 
ing  moral  lesson,  at  which  John  was  as  apt  as 

[  209  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Henry,  though  less  learned  and  paradoxical.  So 
the  minds  of  the  boys  were  kept  open  and  awake; 
they  cooperated  in  the  school  discipline,  instead 
of  resisting  it,  as  schoolboys  are  wont  to  do;  and 
they  were  found  by  their  parents  to  have  ac 
quired  much  general  knowledge,  as  well  as  that 
conveyed  in  their  textbooks,  many  of  which  I 
have  seen.  Consequently,  it  was  soon  needful  for 
the  school  to  leave  the  Parkman  house,  spacious 
as  it  was,  and  to  engage  one  of  the  two  large 
rooms  at  the  Academy  —  not  yet  removed  to  a 
houselot  on  the  new  Middle  Street,  where  it  was 
turned  into  two  tenements,  and  in  1866  bought 
by  Ellery  Channing  and  occupied  by  him  for 
twenty-five  years.  There  every  green  desk  was 
soon  filled  with  pupils,  and  boys  were  required 
to  wait  for  a  vacancy  from  term  to  term,  before 
they  could  be  admitted.  There  were  four  terms 
in  a  year  which  was  longer  than  the  present  school 
year;  the  tuition  was  but  five  dollars  a  term 
unless  advanced  studies  were  pursued;  the  full 
number  of  pupils,  Mr.  Warren  thought,  was 
twenty-five. 

While  in  the  full  tide  of  this  success,  modest 
and  deserved,  it  was  announced  in  1841  that  it 
would  be  closed  in  a  few  days  on  account  of  the 
ill  health  of  John  Thoreau,  then  twenty-six  years 

[  210  ]• 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

old,  who  seems  to  have  had  warning  of  that  in 
sidious  family  malady  (consumption)  of  which 
his  grandfather,  John,  the  Jersey  immigrant, 
and  four  of  his  eight  children,  had  already  died, 
—  Mary,  Nancy,  David,  and  Sarah,  —  usually 
before  the  age  of  thirty.  When  asked  why  longer 
notice  had  not  been  given  of  so  important  a 
matter,  John  replied  that  if  it  had  been  given, 
none  of  the  pupils  would  have  studied;  for  it  was 
with  much  regret  that  these  lively  and  instruc 
tive  classes  were  closed.  The  next  winter,  in  Feb 
ruary,  in  consequence  of  a  slight  accident,  John 
died  of  lockjaw,  to  the  inconsolable  grief  of  his 
brother  and  the  family.  He  was  a  flowing  and 
generous  spirit,  as  one  friend  described  him,  and 
seems  to  have  won  the  first  affections  of  Ellen 
Sewall,  who  did  not  engage  herself  to  Rev.  Joseph 
Osgood,  of  Kensington  and  Cohasset,  until  after 
John  Thoreau's  death. 

The  comparative  pecuniary  prosperity  of  the 
Thoreau  family  had  begun  some  years  before 
Henry  graduated,  with  their  skill  in  making  lead 
pencils  —  an  art  introduced  in  Concord  about 
1812  by  the  Monroes.  William  Monroe  (father 
of  the  giver  of  the  fine  library  and  art  building 
now  standing  where  the  Thoreaus  began  their 
school)  was  the  inventor  of  a  process  that  proved 

] 


HENRY,  DAVID   THOREAU 

successful;  and  from  1812  to  1833  he  was  the 
principal  maker  of  the  article  in  Concord.  John 
Thoreau  took  up  the  manufacture  before  1830, 
and  carried  it  to  higher  perfection,  aided  by  the 
chemical  and  mechanical  skill  of  his  sons.  At  the 
outset  he  employed  the  same  miller  (Ebenezer 
Wood)  to  grind  his  plumbago  whom  Mr.  Mon 
roe  had  set  up  in  his  business;  and  when  Mr. 
Monroe  wished  to  shut  out  his  competitor  from 
the  use  of  the  mill,  in  the  town  of  Acton,  he  was 
not  able  to  do  so,  and  the  mill  went  into  the 
sole  employ  of  the  Thoreaus.  They  continued  to 
make  pencils  until  1853,  and  Henry  was  active 
in  the  manufacture  and  sale  from  1836  for  almost 
twenty  years.  Then  the  business  changed  form, 
and  became  the  preparation  of  fine  plumbago  for 
electrotyping.  It  was  carried  on  by  Henry  in 
this  form  for  the  family,  after  his  father's  death  in 
1859,  and  by  Sophia  after  Henry's  death  in  1862. 
Finally  it  passed  into  the  hands  of  two  brothers, 
Marshall  and  Warren  Miles,  and  gradually  ceased 
to  be  so  profitable  as  when  Henry  and  his  father 
were  active  in  it. 

The  anecdote  for  which  Emerson  in  1862  made 
himself  responsible  —  that  Henry,  having  made  a 
pencil  as  good  as  any  sent  over  from  Europe, 
declined  to  go  on  with  the  process  —  lacks  a 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

basis  in  fact,  though  it  may  have  some  warrant  in 
Thoreau's  petulant  expression.  He  replied,  says 
Emerson,  "that  he  should  never  make  another 
pencil;  why  should  I?"  This  remark  was  not  later 
than  1850,  and  probably  was  made  before  1845. 
Yet  he  says  in  his  published  Journal  (November, 
1853),  "I  was  obliged  to  manufacture  a  thousand 
dollars'  worth  of  pencils  and  slowly  dispose  of  and 
finally  sacrifice  them,  in  order  to  pay  an  assumed 
debt  of  a  hundred  dollars."  His  improvements 
in  the  art  were  probably  all  in  the  way  of  grinding 
the  plumbago  finer,  and  reducing  its  grittiness 
by  new  ingredients,  better  than  the  bayberry 
wax  used  by  the  Monroes.  Add  to  this  the  fact 
of  access  to  a  superior  mine  of  black  lead  in  Can 
ada,  and  we  have  the  secret  of  the  success  that 
certainly  attended  the  business  from  1840  onward. 
All  the  memories  of  John  Thoreau  the  younger 
are  pleasing,  if  pathetic.  He  held  himself  less 
aloof  from  society  than  Henry  did  afterward, 
and  had  little  of  his  brother's  censoriousness.  He 
was  intimate  with  the  printer  and  editor  William 
Robinson,  afterwards  better  known  by  his  as 
sumed  name  of  "Warrington"  as  a  witty  news 
paper  correspondent.  In  1842  Robinson  was  absent 
from  Concord,  and  a  friend  wrote  to  him  these 
particulars  of  John's  short  illness  and  death:  — 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

I  cannot  close  without  referring  to  the  sudden  death 
of  our  friend  John  Thoreau,  whom  you  knew  and  loved 
so  well.  In  the  evening  of  Saturday,  January  29,  he 
went  to  Dr.  Bartlett,  who  dressed  his  wounded  finger; 
and  with  no  apprehension  of  further  difficulty,  he 
walked  home.  On  the  way  he  had  strange  sensations,  — 
acute  pains  in  various  parts,  and  was  hardly  able  to 
get  home,  though  but  a  short  distance.  Sunday  night 
he  had  violent  spasms,  and  lockjaw  set  in.  Being  told  he 
must  die  a  speedy  and  painful  death,  he  was  unmoved. 
"Is  there  no  hope?"  he  asked.  "None,"  said  the  doc 
tor.  Then,  although  his  friends  around  him  were  al 
most  distracted,  John  was  calm,  saying,  "The  cup 
that  my  Father  gives  me,  shall  I  not  drink  it?"  He 
bade  his  friends  all  good-bye;  and  twice  he  mentioned 
your  name.  Not  long  before  death  he  thought  he  had 
written  something;  and  he  said,  "I  will  carry  it  down 
to  Robinson,  —  he  will  like  to  read  it."  He  died  Tues 
day  afternoon,  with  as  much  cheerfulness  and  com 
posure  as  if  only  going  a  short  journey. 

It  is  singular  that  few  letters  or  essays  of  his 
have  been  preserved;  all  that  we  find  now  are 
letters  and  two  stanzas  of  religious  verse,  in  the 
handwriting  of  his  younger  sister,  Sophia:  — 

I  will  not  lead  a  feverish  life, 
To  pleasure  and  to  folly  given, 

And  sink  the  soul  in  petty  strife 
The  Father  calls  to  Heaven. 


PENCIL-MAKING    TEACHERS 

Be  this  the  Eden  of  my  soul,  — 

A  second  Adam's  paradise, 
When  I  obey  Jehovah's  call,  — 

Nor  shrink  with  dread  that  comes  of  vice. 

On  the  reverse  of  the  page  where  Henry  had 
written  his  "  Voyager's  Song,"  another  hand 
inscribed  this  poem,  which  may  have  been  meant 

for  John:  — 

Change  Not 

Be  ever  thus!  though  years  must  roll 

And  add  their  wrinkles  to  thy  cheek: 
Still  let  thy  ever-youthful  soul 

In  word  and  action  live  and  speak! 
Unknowing  of  a  wicked  thought, 

Untouched  by  any  act  of  sin, 
And  all  ungoverned  and  untaught 

Save  by  the  Monitor  within. 

Thou  shalt  know  nothing  of  the  things 
That  breed  Earth's  countless  quarrellings: 
Yet  of  the  harmony  of  the  Sage, 
The  Poet's  rhyme,  the  Scholar's  page, 
All  that  is  pure  and  true  shall  be 
A  gift  of  instinct  unto  thee, 
And  so,  as  guileless  and  as  wild, 
Thou  shalt  live  on  and  die,  —  a  Child. 

Letter  of  John  Thoreau,  Jr. 

CONCORD,  Oct.  18,  1833. 
FRIEND  STEARNS:  — 

You  will  see  by  this  epistle  that  I  am  in  the  land  of 
Harmony;  yea,  verily,  I  am  a  sojourner  in  the  tents  of 

[215] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

the  peaceful.  I  intended  to  have  written  you  last 
week,  but  was  not  well.  I  had  the  nose  bleed  (ignoble 
complaint)  on  cattle-show  day  to  such  an  extent  that 
I  fainted  from  loss  of  blood,  and  was  not  able  to  par 
ticipate  in  the  festivities  of  the  day.  I  have  since  been 
rather  weak,  and  have  not  taken  much  exercise.  I  am 
now  gaining  fast,  and  contemplate  many  pedestrian 
excursions.  .  .  . 

I  received  your  letter,  and  was  extremely  shocked 
at  your  vituperation  of  "Nature's  first,  best  gift  to 
man":  you  called  the  portion  under  your  immediate 
observation,  fiat  &  insipid.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  these  damsels  are  not  so  bad  as  you  imagine; 
you  know  the  poet  says  "Women  should  have  a  win 
ning  softness."  You  must  have  more  charity.  The 
world  is  under  an  obligation  to  women  which  it  can 
never  repay;  although  some  have  the  audacity  to  assert 
that  a  considerable  portion  of  womankind  are  engaged 
in  liquidating  it  at  this  present  time,  yet  I  consider  it 
as  base  calumny  and  slander. 

When  I  recommend  to  you  the  exercise  of  more  char 
ity,  I  do  not  mean  that  charity  which  is  without  dis 
cretion.  "That  thou  mayst  regard  discretion;  and  that 
thy  lips  may  keep  knowledge;  for  the  lips  of  a  strange 
woman  are  as  a  honeycomb,  and  her  mouth  is  smoother 
than  oil."  .  .  . 

For  my  part  I  am  exempt  from  all  such  tempta 
tions;  as  there  is  naught  here  save  a  few  antiquated 
spinsters,  or  December  virgins,  if  you  will;  and  well 
may  I  sing,  "What's  this  dull  town  to  me?  no  girls 
are  here." 

216 


PENCIL-MAKING   TEACHERS 

S[arah]  &  Eflizabeth]  Hoar  are  in  the  city  still.  Sarah 
is  coming  up  to  enliven  this  wilderness  in  about  six 
weeks;  and  as  I  shall  probably  be  here,  I  shall,  as  I 
said  before,  take  every  opportunity  of  testifying  my  ad 
miration  of  your  choice.  Jealousy  is  tormenting  one's 
self  for  fear  of  being  tormented  by  another;  have  none 
of  it,  my  dear  fellow.  You  must  not  suppose  that  while 
you  slumbered,  "the  enemy  came  and  sowed  tares"; 
no,  my  dear  Othello,  I  claim  her  by  right  of  a  first  dis 
coverer  :  though  perhaps  you  think  that  this  may  ter 
minate  like  the  discovery  of  our  Continent,  in  being 
discovered  by  one,  and  named  after  another. 

In  this  respect  I  presume  you  have  faith;  we  read 
it  is  the  substance  of  things  hoped  for.  (Hope  you'll 
swallow  this  last  morceau,  as  a  corrective  of  the  pills;) 
and  I  pray,  George,  you  will  not  suffer  these  intima 
tions  to  disturb  your  equanimity.  I  exhort  you  to  pa 
tience;  for  I  beg  it  may  not  be  said  of  me,  as  was  said 
of  the  immortal  Gilpin:  " '  So!  fair  and  softly!'  John  he 
cried,  but  John  he  cried  in  vain." 

Henry  and  Stearns  Wheeler  walked  up  from  Cam 
bridge  last  week.  Henry  blistered  his  feet  very  badly; 
he  said  he  walked  two  miles  in  his  stockings;  he  was 
three  hours  coming  from  Lincoln;  he  made  quite  a 
short  visit. 

Mr.  [Phineas]  Allen's  school  is  quite  full;  he  has  over 
fifty  scholars,  mostly  small,  however.  Perhaps  you  are 
aware  he  has  engaged  Miss  Lucy  F.  Barrett  as  an 
assistant. 

A  Temperance  Society  was  formed  here  about  a  week 
since,  Rev.  Dr.  Ripley,  President. 

[217] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

Is  your  situation  in  any  degree  rendered  pleasanter? 
I  hope  it  will  be  such  as  to  admit  of  your  writing  to  me 
frequently.  You  must  excuse  my  writing,  as  I  have  no 
lines;  and  our  accommodations  for  [such]  effusions 
are  very  poor.  (See  P.  B.) 

I  shall  not  promise  you  much  satisfaction  in  perusing 
my  letters,  and  news  is  actually  obsolete  in  this  place.  I 
hope  you  will  conclude  to  pay  us  a  visit  soon.  So,  wish 
ing  you  escape  from  certain  green-eyed  monsters,  I 
shall,  until  some  refulgent  orb  (in  the  shape  of  a  bevy  of 
fair  damsels)  shines  upon  this  deserted  land,  subscribe 
myself, 

Yours  from  Sahara 

JOHN  THOREAU.1 

P.S.  Please  present  my  respects  to  your  Brothers, 
and  write  soon. 

MR.  GEORGE  STEARNS,  WOBURN,  MASS. 

1  John  was  two  years  younger  than  Helen,  and  three  years  older 
than  Henry,  being  at  this  date  nineteen.  Naturally,  at  that  age, 
the  thoughts  of  young  men  lightly  turn  to  love;  and  the  young  ladies 
here  mentioned,  the  daughters  of  Samuel  Hoar,  Esq.,  leader  of  the 
Middlesex  Bar,  and  granddaughters  of  Roger  Sherman,  lately  grad 
uates  of  Mr.  Allen's  Concord  Academy,  where  probably  George 
Stearns,  of  a  clerical  family,  had  also  been  a  pupil,  with  John  and 
Henry  Thoreau,  were  the  most  desirable  matches  in  town.  Not  that 
such  gossip  as  in  this  correspondence  was  anything  more  than  par 
donable  compliment.  So  far  as  John  Thoreau's  attentions  were 
directed  to  any  one  damsel  in  the  village,  until  they  were  attracted 
by  Ellen  Sewall,  they  seem  to  have  fallen  on  another  young  lady 
less  eligible.  But,  by  the  easy  code  of  civility  in  this  Puritan  Dem 
ocracy,  any  youth,  admitted  to  the  schools,  balls,  and  parties, 
might  "pay  attentions"  to  any  damsel  he  met  there.  The  weekly 
Lyceum,  the  Masonic  balls,  and  the  parties  of  the  Concord  Artil 
lery,  and  many  other  social  opportunities  were  afforded  for  the 
natural  meeting  of  the  sexes. 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE    WEEK   ON   THE   RIVERS 

ALTHOUGH  it  was  ten  years  after  the  river 
voyage  was  made  that  its  story  was  made  public, 
it  had  yet  served  as  a  step  in  the  progress  of 
Thoreau  toward  his  life  work  —  that  of  an  ob 
server  and  recorder  of  outward  nature,  and  a 
censor  of  human  nature  in  himself  and  others. 
Long  before  September,  1839,  when  he  had 
reached  the  age  of  two-and-twenty,  he  had  ac 
customed  himself  to  observe  closely  all  the  phe 
nomena  of  earth  and  sky,  and  had  been  a  consid 
erable  traveller.  In  1836  he  had  gone  with  his 
father  to  New  York,  selling  their  wares,  which 
at  that  time  were  pencils.  He  had  probably  been 
on  a  visit  to  his  cousins  in  Bangor,  before  that 
journey  which  he  made  in  May,  1838,  in  quest 
of  a  school;  and  the  towns  about  Concord  were 
familiar  to  him  from  his  excursions  with  his  gun 
in  quest  of  game.  He  began  to  note  for  descrip 
tion  poetic  aspects  of  the  landscape  as  early  as 
1835,  and  a  few  such  passages  have  been  preserved. 
Regular  journalizing,  on  the  scale  followed  by  him 
in  after  years,  began  in  1837,  and  the  index  pre- 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

served  from  this  lost  volume  shows  that  it  was 
in  the  same  fashion  of  unseparated  mingling  of 
description  with  reflection,  which  surprises  the 
reader  of  existing  volumes  of  the  Journal.  His 
mode  of  recording  these  remarks  and  reflections 
is  different  from  the  common  practice  among 
those  who  keep  journals,  and  indicates  a  pur 
pose  which  he  methodically  followed  in  all  his 
after  life.  What  this  practice  was,  and  the  mo 
tive  for  it,  were  curiously  noted  by  Channing, 
whose  statement  is  here  copied.  It  was  not  made 
until  some  years  after  the  river  voyage;  but  must 
have  been  much  the  same  from  1837  until  the 
Minnesota  journey;  after  which  his  health  did  not 
allow  him  to  pursue  this  elaborate  system  of 
notes,  copies,  records,  and  indexing.  Channing 
says:  — 

His  habit  was  to  go  abroad  a  portion  of  each  day,  to 
fields  or  woods  or  the  Concord  River.  "I  go  out,"  he 
said,  "to  see  what  I  have  caught  in  my  traps,  which  I 
set  for  facts."  He  looked  to  fabricate  an  epitome  of 
creation,  and  give  us  a  homeopathy  of  Nature.  .  .  . 
He  used  the  afternoon  for  walking,  and  usually  set  forth 
about  2.30,  returning  at  5.30;  this  three  hours  was  the 
average  length  of  his  walk.  In  these  walks  his  pockets 
must  accommodate  his  notebook  and  spy-glass.  The 
notebook  was  a  cover  for  some  folded  papers,  on  which 
he  took  his  out-of-door  notes;  this  was  never  omitted, 


THE  WEEK   ON   THE   RIVERS 

rain  or  shine.  He  acquired  great  skill  in  conveying  by  a 
few  lines  or  strokes  a  long  story,  which  in  his  written 
Journal  might  occupy  pages.  Into  the  notebook  must 
go  all  measurements  with  the  f ootrule  which  he  always 
carried,  or  the  surveyor's  tape;  also  all  observations 
with  his  spy-glass,  —  an  invariable  companion;  all 
conditions  of  plants,  spring,  summer  and  fall;  the  depth 
of  snows,  the  strangeness  of  skies,  —  all  went  down. 
To  his  memory  he  never  trusted  for  a  fact,  but  to  the 
paper  and  the  pencil.  I  have  seen  bits  of  this  notebook, 
but  never  recognized  any  word  in  it;  and  I  have  read  its 
expansion  in  the  Journal  to  many  pages,  of  that  which 
occupied  him  but  five  minutes  to  write  in  the  field. 
"Have  you  written  up  your  notes  in  your  Journal?" 
was  one  of  his  questions.  .  .  .  He  brought  home  from 
his  walks  objects  of  all  kinds,  —  pieces  of  wood  or  f  I 
stone,  lichens,  seeds,  nuts,  apples,  or  whatever  he  had 
found;  for  he  was  a  vigorous  collector. 

The  idea  he  conceived  was,  that  he  might,  upon  a 
small  territory  like  Concord,  construct  a  chart  or 
calendar  of  the  phenomena  of  the  seasons  in  their 
order,  and  give  their  general  average  for  the  year. 
Nothing  should  be  taken  on  hearsay.  How  vast  a 
work  this  is!  he  could  only  have  completed  some  por 
tion  of  it  in  a  long  lifetime.  His  calendar  embraced 
cold  and  heat,  rain  and  snow,  ice  and  water;  he  had  his 
gauges  on  the  river,  which  he  consulted,  winter  and 
summer;  he  knew  the  temperature  of  all  the  springs  in 
town;  he  measured  the  snows  when  remarkable.  I 
never  heard  him  complain  that  the  plants  were  too 
many,  the  hours  too  long.  .  .  .  Insects  were  fascinating, 

[221] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

from  the  first  gray  little  moth,  the  Perla,  born  in  Feb 
ruary's  deceitful  glare,  to  the  last  luxuriating  Vanessa 
antiope,  that  gorgeous  purple-velvet  butterfly  of  No 
vember.  Hornets,  wasps,  bees  and  spiders  and  their 
several  nests,  he  carefully  attended.  Hawks,  ducks, 
sparrows,  thrushes  and  migrating  warblers,  in  all  their 
variety,  he  carefully  perused  with  his  field-glass.  He 
"named  all  the  birds  without  a  gun,"  —  a  weapon  he 
never  used  in  mature  years.  He  neither  killed  nor  im 
prisoned  any  animal,  unless  driven  by  acute  needs.  He 
brought  home  a  flying-squirrel,  to  study  its  mode  of 
flight;  but  quickly  carried  it  back  to  the  wood.  His 
study  (a  place  in  the  garret)  held  its  dry  miscellany  of 
botanical  specimens,  its  corner  of  canes,  its  cases  of 
eggs  and  lichens,  and  a  weight  of  Indian  arrow-heads 
and  hatchets,  — besides  a  store  of  nuts,  of  which  he 
was  as  fond  as  squirrels  are. 

The  excursion  which  gave  occasion  for  his  first 
book,  the  "Week,"  was  suggested  by  the  boat 
which  he  and  his  brother  built  in  the  spring  of 
1839,  and  the  tent  which  they  added  for  voy 
ages  of  more  than  one  day.  It  extended  from 
Concord  to  the  top  of  Mount  Washington,  and 
was  the  first  of  those  mountain  visits  which  were 
afterward  a  part  of  his  summer  life.  Occasionally 
he  visited  Monadnoc  earlier  or  later  in  the  year; 
and  he  spent  more  hours  on  that  mountain  than 
on  any  other.  Wachusett,  a  nearer  mountain, 

[  222  ] 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

he  several  times  visited;  and  he  had  tried  his 
hand  at  descriptions  of  nature  in  the  "Dial" 
and  other  magazines,  before  he  could  get  his  first 
book  printed  —  which  was  at  his  own  expense 
in  1849.  It  omitted  many  of  the  details  of  the 
fortnight  whose  hours  by  day  and  night  it  occu 
pied;  but  he  wove  into  its  earlier  substance  the 
diary  of  tours  he  had  afterwards  taken  to  the 
Uncanoonucs,  to  Greylock,  to  the  Catskills,  and 
to  Monadnoc.  He  first  appeared  as  an  author 
in  print,  in  the  "  Dial "  (its  first  number,  July, 
1840),  in  a  poem  entitled  "Sympathy,"  which 
professed  to  lament  a  "gentle  boy,"  but  did  in 
fact  celebrate,  in  unaccustomed  fashion,  the  sis 
ter  of  one  of  his  pupils  in  the  school  of  the  two 
brothers.  Other  verses  and  prose  essays  followed; 
but  that  rhapsody  on  courage,  soldiership,  and 
music,  which  I  printed  in  1902,  as  "The  Ser- 
vice,"  did  not  get  admission  to  the  "Dial,"  be 
cause  Margaret  Fuller  did  not  think  it  quite 
good  enough.  After  giving  a  general  view  of  the 
thirteen  days'  tour,  condensed  by  him  into  a 
week  of  seven  days,  I  give  some  omitted  por 
tions  of  the  Journal  (long  since  destroyed)  from 
which  about  half  the  volume  was  taken,  with 
modifications  and  insertions,  —  Thoreau's  con 
stant  habit,  when  preparing  a  book  for  the  press. 

[223] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

The  Actual  Tour  of  September,  1839 

On  Saturday,  August  31,  the  new  boat  was 
freighted  with  the  tent,  blankets,  instruments 
of  precision,  food,  literature,  etc.,  thought  to  be 
needful  or  convenient  for  the  brothers;  and  it 
dropped  down  the  Sudbury  to  its  junction  with 
the  Assabet,  constituting  the  larger  stream  known 
as  Concord  River;  and  it  passed  under  the  Red 
Bridge,  and  the  Battle-Ground  Bridge,  gliding 
by  the  Parsonage,  not  yet  known  as  the  "Old 
Manse,"  under  the  new  North  Bridge,  through 
the  meadows  at  the  foot  of  Ponkawtassett,  and 
onward  toward  Bedford,  Billerica,  and  Lowell. 
By  September  1  the  brothers  were  enjoying  Sun 
day  quiet  on  the  broad  stream  of  the  Merri- 
mac,  and  the  journalizing  had  begun.  Monday 
morning  they  were  rowing  their  boat  through  an 
early  fog  between  Dunstable  and  Nashua  in  New 
Hampshire,  "  advancing  farther  into  the  country 
and  into  the  day,  —  the  slight  bustle  and  activ 
ity  of  Monday  being  added  to  the  Sundayness  of 
Nature."  Henry  says:  — 

Occasionally  one  of  us  would  run  along  the  shore  for 
a  change;  examining  the  country  and  visiting  the  near 
est  farm-houses;  while  the  other  followed  the  windings 
of  the  river  alone,  with  a  view  of  meeting  his  companion 

[  224  ] 


THE   WEEK   ON    THE    RIVERS 

at  some  distant  point,  and  hearing  the  report  of  each 
other's  adventures;  —  how  the  farmer  praised  the 
coolness  of  his  well,  and  his  wife  offered  the  stranger  a 
draught  of  milk.  For  though  the  country  was  so  new, 
and  the  inhabitants  unobserved  and  unexplored  by  us 
(shut  in  between  steep  banks,  that  still  and  sunny  day), 
we  did  not  have  to  travel  far  to  find  where  men  in 
habited  like  wild  bees,  and  had  sunk  wells  in  the  loose 
sand  and  loam  of  the  Merrimac.  All  that  is  told  of 
mankind,  —  of  the  inhabitants  of  the  Upper  Nile,  and 
the  Sunderbunds,  and  of  Timbuctoo  and  the  Orinoko, 
is  experience  there.  And  there  have  lived  original 
and  free-thinking  men,  perhaps,  —  those  men  of  whom 
we  read  in  the  history  of  New  Hampshire.  While  we 
were  engaged  in  these  reflections,  and  thought  ourselves 
the  only  navigators  of  these  waters,  suddenly  a  canal- 
boat,  like  some  huge  river-horse,  with  its  large  sail  set, 
glided  round  a  point  before  us,  and  changed  the  scene  in 
an  instant.  And  then  another  and  another  glided  into 
sight,  and  we  found  ourselves  once  more  in  the  current 
of  commerce.  .  .  .  Then  we  turned  our  prow  ashore, 
to  spend  the  remainder  of  the  day  under  the  oaks  of  a 
retired  pasture,  sloping  to  the  water's  edge,  and  bor 
dered  with  hazel,  in  the  town  of  Hudson. 

This  was  Monday  night,  September  2.  Tues 
day  night  they  were  at  Coos  Falls  in  the  New 
Hampshire  town  of  Bedford,  chatting  with  some 
masons,  whom  they  saw  again  Wednesday  morn 
ing,  as  they  were  striking  their  tent,  —  a  passage 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

omitted  from  the  volume,  but  showing  how  they 
camped:  — 

We  supposed  we  had  selected  a  retired  part  of  the 
shore;  but  we  discovered  this  morning  that  we  had 
pitched  our  tent  directly  in  the  path  of  the  masons, 
whom  we  had  seen  crossing  the  Merrimac  in  their  boat 
the  evening  before.  And  now,  going  to  their  work 
again,  they  came  upon  us  as  we  were  rolling  up  our 
tent;  and  tarried  to  examine  our  furniture  and  handle 
our  guns,  which  were  leaning  against  a  tree.  This  was 
the  first  and  only  time  that  we  were  observed  in  our 
camping-ground  by  any  one,  —  though  our  white  tent 
on  an  eminence  must  have  been  a  conspicuous  ob 
ject.  So  much  room  is  there  still  in  Nature,  and  so  easy 
would  it  be  to  travel  the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land 
without  the  knowledge  of  its  inhabitants.  Thus  with 
out  skulking,  far  from  the  dust  and  din  of  travel,  we 
had  beheld  the  country  at  our  leisure,  by  daylight  and 
by  night,  —  secure  of  the  best  introduction  to  Nature. 
,  All  other  roads  intrude  and  bring  the  traveller  to  a 
stand;  but  the  river  has  stolen  into  the  scenery  it 
traverses  without  intrusion,  —  watering  and  adorn 
ing  it;  and  is  as  free  to  come  and  go  as  the  zephyr. 

That  day,  September  4,  they  sped  on  upstream, 
past  Manchester,  toward  Hooksett,  and  in  sight 
of  the  Pinnacle,  a  picturesque  mountain-spur; 
and  passed  the  night  near  where  they  left  their 
boat  for  a  week,  while  they  pushed  on  by  land 
to  Concord,  Sanbornton,  and  the  White  Moun- 

[  226  ] 


THE   WEEK    ON   THE    RIVERS 

tains.  The  description  of  this  last  stretch  of 
their  voyage  up  shows  clearly  the  completeness 
of  their  preparation  for  such  a  tour:  — 

We  presently  came  upon  several  canal-boats,  at  in 
tervals  of  a  quarter-mile,  standing  up  to  Hooksett 
with  a  light  breeze;  and  one  by  one  they  disappeared 
round  a  point  above.  With  their  broad  sails  set,  they 
moved  slowly  up  the  stream  in  the  sluggish  and  fitful 
breeze,  as  if  impelled  by  some  mysterious  counter-cur 
rent,  like  antediluvian  birds;  a  grand  motion,  slow  and 
steady.  One  steersman  offered  to  take  us  in  tow,  but 
when  he  came  alongside  we  found  that  he  intended  to 
take  us  on  board,  boat  and  all.  As  we  were  too  heavy 
to  be  lifted  aboard,  we  left  him  and  proceeded  up  the 
stream  half  a  mile,  to  the  shade  of  some  maples,  to 
spend  our  noon.  In  half  an  hour  several  boats  passed 
up  the  river,  and  among  them  the  boat  mentioned, 
keeping  the  middle  of  the  stream  with  a  fair  wind. 
The  steersman  called  out  ironically  that  if  we  would 
come  alongside  he  would  take  us  in  tow.  We  made  no 
haste  to  give  chase  till  they  were  a  quarter-mile  ahead. 
Then,  with  all  our  sails  set,  and  plying  our  four  oars, 
we  shot  swiftly  up  the  stream,  and,  one  after  the  other, 
we  overtook  them.  As  we  glided  under  the  side  of  our 
acquaintances,  we  quietly  promised,  if  they  would 
throw  us  a  rope,  to  take  them  in  tow.  Thus  we  gradu 
ally  overhauled  each  boat  in  succession,  until  we  had 
the  river  to  ourselves  again. 

This  shows  they  had  more  than  one  sail,  and 


HENRY    DAVID  JTHOREAU 

were  the  fastest  boat  on  the  river.  Thursday 
proved  rainy,  and  they  set  out  on  foot  for  Ply 
mouth,  where  dwelt  their  friend  N.  P.  Rogers, 
an  anti-slavery  lecturer  and  editor,  on  whom 
they  called,  and  then  walked  on  through  Hol- 
derness,  Lincoln,  Franconia,  and  Bethlehem,  to 
the  Crawford  Notch  and  the  summit  of  Mount 
Washington;  which  Thoreau,  like  Emerson,  calls 
Agiocochook.  In  a  fragmentary  diary  which  I 
have  seen,  Henry  says  that  they  left  their  boat 
at  Hooksett,  Thursday,  September  5,  walked  to 
Concord,  New  Hampshire,  that  night;  on  the  6th 
took  the  stage-coach  for  Plymouth,  and  thence 
on  foot  to  Tilton's  Tavern  in  Thornton.  He 
notes  that  "the  mountain  scenery  begins  on 
Sanbornton  Square."  On  the  7th  they  were  at 
the  Franconia  Notch,  gazing  on  the  "Old  Man 
of  the  Mountain,"  — Hawthorne's  "Great  Stone 
Face,"  —  and  on  the  8th  in  Tom  Crawford's 
Tavern  at  the  Great  Notch;  from  which  they 
made  excursions  down  the  Notch  and  in  other 
directions.  They  seem  to  have  rested  on  Sun 
day,  and  did  not  ascend  the  highest  peak  until 
Tuesday,  September  10;  and  they  returned  by 
stage-coach  from  North  Conway,  and  were  at 
Hooksett,  Thursday  night,  September  12,  after 
a  week's  absence  from  their  boat,  which  they 


THE   WEEK   ON    THE    RIVERS 

found  in  good  condition.   Miss  Prudence  Ward, 
writing  to  her  brother,  September  30,  said:  — 

The  young  gentlemen  returned  from  their  expedi 
tion  to  the  White  Mountains  in  less  than  a  fortnight, 
having  gone  nearly  to  Concord,  New .  Hampshire,  in 
their  boat;  from  there  they  travelled  most  of  the  way 
on  foot,  returning  to  their  boat  by  stage.  Their  re 
turn  was  very  expeditious,  —  coming  in  the  boat  fifty 
miles  the  last  day  (Friday,  September  13).  Having  so 
much  of  his  vacation  left,  John  thought  he  would  visit 
his  sisters  at  Roxbury;  and  also  go  to  Scituate.  We 
knew  not  for  certain  whether  Mr.  Sewall  would  be  gone. 
It  seems  he  had  set  off  that  very  day.  John  enjoyed 
himself,  however,  very  well  with  Ellen  and  the  boys. 
Caroline  told  you  of  the  very  pleasant  visit  we  had 
from  Ellen;  and  we  have  also  heard  directly  from  there 
by  John  Thoreau. 

A  slight  notice  of  John's  visit  came  also  from 
Ellen  Sewall  to  her  aunt;  accompanying  some 
flowers  pressed  in  a  pamphlet  sermon,  on  the  in 
side  cover  of  which  the  maiden  wrote,  "I  have 
enjoyed  Mr.  John's  visit  exceedingly,  though 
sorry  that  father  and  mother  were  not  at  home." 
Before  the  river  voyage,  Henry  had  probably 
learned  that  his  brother  was  preferred  to  himself 
in  that  quarter;  for  his  poem  in  the  "Dial"  was 
dated  June  24,  1839.  Other  verses  of  the  period 

[  229  1 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

would  seem  to  have  had  this  maiden  in  view  — 
particularly  — 

The  Breeze's  Invitation 

Like  two  careless  swifts  let  *s  sail, 

(Zephyrus  shall  think  for  me,) 
Over  hill  and  over  dale, 
Riding  on  the  easy  gale, 

We  will  scan  the  earth  and  sea. 

Yonder  see  that  willow  tree, 

Winnowing  the  buxom  air! 
You  a  gnat  and  I  a  bee, 
With  our  merry  minstrelsy 

We  will  make  a  concert  there. 

One  green  leaf  shall  be  our  screen 

Till  the  sun  doth  go  to  bed; 
I  the  king  and  you  the  queen 
Of  that  peaceful  little  green, 

Without  any  subject's  aid. 

To  our  music  Time  shall  linger, 

And  Earth  open  wide  her  ear; 
Nor  shall  any  need  to  tarry, 
To  immortal  verse  to  marry 

Such  sweet  music  as  he  '11  hear. 

Like  much  of  Thoreau's  verse,  this  is  oracular 
or  mystical;  and  such  was  often  his  prose  when 
Music  was  his  theme.  Thus,  in  a  long  passage 
from  the  Journal  of  the  river  voyage,  only  a  small 
part  of  which  appeared  in  the  "Week,"  I  find 
this:  — 

[230] 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

Music  at  Night  (September  2, 1839) 

I  shall  not  soon  forget  the  sounds  which  we  heard 
as  we  were  falling  asleep  this  night  on  the  banks  of  the 
Merrimac.  Far  into  the  night  we  heard  some  tyro 
beating  a  drum  incessantly,  in  preparation  for  a  coun 
try  muster  in  Candia,  as  we  learned,  and  we  thought 
of  the  line,  — 

"When  the  drum  beat  at  dead  of  night." 

The  very  firmament  echoed  his  beat,  and  we  could 
have  answered  him  that  it  would  be  answered,  and  the 
forces  be  mustered.  Fear  not,  thou  drummer  of  the 
night,  we  too  will  be  there !  And  still  he  drummed  on 
alone  in  the  silence  and  the  dark.  This  stray  sound 
from  a  far-off  sphere  came  to  our  ears  from  time  to 
time,  to  remind  us  of  those  fabulous  Arabian  notes  we 
had  almost  forgotten.  It  was  as  if  our  shoulders  jogged 
the  stars. 

Occasionally  we  hear  a  remote  sound  from  a  distant 
sphere,  with  so  unprejudiced  a  sense  for  the  sweet  and 
significant,  that  we  seem  for  the  first  time  to  have  heard 
at  all;  and  then  the  cheapest  sound  has  a  larger  mean 
ing  and  a  wider  undulation  than  we  know.  When  we 
hear  any  musical  sound  in  Nature,  it  is  as  if  it  were  a 
bell  ringing;  we  feel  that  we  are  not  belated,  but  in 
season  wholly,  and  enjoy  a  pensive  and  leisure  hour. 

What  a  fine  and  beautiful  communication  is  Music, 
from  age  to  age,  of  the  fairest  and  noblest  thoughts,  — 
the  aspirations  of  ancient  men  preserved,  —  even  such 
as  were  never  communicated  by  speech!  It  is  the 
flower  of  language,  —  thought  colored  and  curved, 

[231  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

tinged  and  wreathed,  —  fluent  and  flexible:  its  crystal 
fountain  tinged  with  the  sun's  rays,  and  its  purling 
ripples  reflecting  the  green  grass  and  the  red  clouds.  It 
teaches  us  again  and  again  to  trust  the  remotest  and 
finest  as  the  divinest  instinct;  and  it  makes  a  dream  our 
only  real  experience. 

Each  more  melodious  note  I  hear 

Brings  this  reproach  to  me,  — 
That  I  alone  afford  the  ear, 

Who  would  the  music  be. 

The  brave  man  is  the  sole  patron  of  music :  he  recognizes 
it  for  his  mother-tongue,  —  a  more  mellifluous  and 
articulate  language  than  words;  in  comparison  with 
which,  speech  is  recent  and  temporary.  His  language 
must  have  the  same  majestic  movement  and  cadence 
that  philosophy  assigns  to  the  heavenly  bodies.  The 
steady  flux  of  his  thought  constitutes  time  in  music. 
The  universe  falls  in  and  keeps  pace  with  it,  —  which 
before  proceeded  singly  and  discordant. 

Hence  are  Poetry  and  Song.  When  Bravery  first 
grew  afraid  and  went  to  war,  it  took  Music  along  with 
it.  The  soul  is  still  delighted  to  hear  the  echo  of  its 
own  voice.  It  was  the  dim  sentiment  of  a  noble  friend 
ship  for  the  purest  soul  the  world  has  seen,  that  gave 
to  Europe  a  crusading  era.  If  the  soldier  marches  to 
the  sack  of  a  town,  he  must  be  preceded  by  drum  and 
trumpet,  to  identify  his  cause  with  the  accordant  uni 
verse. 

There  is  as  much  music  in  the  world  as  virtue.  In  a 
world  of  peace  and  love  music  would  be  the  universal 
language;  and  men  would  greet  each  other  in  the  fields 

[  232  ] 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

in  such  accents  as  a  Beethoven  now  utters  at  rare  in 
tervals,  from  a  distance.  All  things  obey  music  as  they 
obey  virtue;  it  is  the  herald  of  virtue;  it  is  God's 
voice. 

As  polishing  brings  out  the  vein  in  marble  and  the 
grain  in  wood,  so  music  brings  out  what  of  heroic  lurks 
anywhere.  It  is  either  a  sedative  or  a  tonic  to  the  soul. 

A  sudden  burst  from  a  horn  startles  us,  as  if  one  had 
rashly  provoked  a  wild  beast;  he  dares  wake  the  echoes 
which  he  cannot  put  to  rest.  The  sound  of  a  bugle  in 
the  stillness  of  the  night  sends  forth  its  voice  to  the 
farthest  stars.  Instantly  it  finds  its  sounding-board  in 
the  heavens.  A  man's  life  should  be  a  stately  march 
to  an  unheard  music;  and  when  to  his  fellows  it  may 
seem  irregular  and  inharmonious,  he  may  be  stepping 
to  a  livelier  measure,  which  only  his  nicer  ear  can 
detect.  .  .  .  Let  not  the  faithful  sorrow,  that  he  has  no 
ear  for  the  more  fickle  and  subtile  harmonies  of  crea 
tion,  if  he  be  awake  to  the  slower  measure  of  virtue  and 
truth.  If  his  pulse  does  not  beat  in  unison  with  the 
musician's  quips  and  turns,  it  may  accord  with  the 
pulse-beat  of  the  ages. 

These  are  not  the  vagaries  of  imagination, 
but  the  versatile  thoughts  of  a  sensitive  and  musi 
cal  youth,  who  seeks  to  show  his  subtile  fancies  in 
all  their  variety.  Such  refined  speculations  alter 
nate,  in  these  early  Journals,  with  the  plainest 
practical  observations,  and  cool  statements  of 
everyday  fact,  concerning  the  American  Indian, 

f  233  ] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

the  passenger  pigeon,  or  the  wood  duck  or  wild 
goose.  In  closing  this  voyage  in  the  colder  at 
mosphere  of  mid-September,  the  two  brothers 
note  with  interest  the  scenes  they  beheld  with 
keen  curiosity  as  they  toiled  upstream  with  sail 
and  oar,  in  a  summer  climate. 

Hooksett,  Thursday,  Sept.  12, 1839.  Finding  our  boat 
safe  in  its  harbor  under  the  Uncannunuc  Mountain, 
with  a  fair  wind  and  the  current  in  our  favor,  we  com 
menced  our  return  voyage  at  noon;  sitting  at  our  ease 
and  conversing,  or  in  silence  watching  for  the  end  of 
each  reach  in  the  river,  as  a  bend  concealed  it  from 
view.  As  the  season  was  now  farther  advanced,  the 
wind  blew  steadily  from  the  north,  and  we  were  en 
abled  to  lie  upon  our  oars,  without  much  loss  of  time, 
when  it  pleased  us.  By  this  time  we  had  become  known 
as  a  strange  craft  upon  the  river,  and  had  acquired  the 
nickname  of  the  "Revenue  Cutter."  With  this  pro 
pitious  breeze  we  soon  reached  the  Falls  of  Amoskeag, 
and  recognized,  as  we  passed  rapidly  by,  many  a  fair 
bank  and  islet  upon  which  our  thoughts  had  rested 
on  the  upward  passage.  Without  any  design  or  effort 
of  ours,  the  ripples  curled  away  in  the  wake  of  our 
boat,  like  ringlets  from  the  head  of  a  child;  while  we 
went  serenely  on  our  way.  We  passed  in  broad  day 
light  the  scene  of  our  night's  encampment  at  Coos 
Falls,  and  at  last  pitched  our  camp  on  the  west  bank, 
in  the  northern  part  of  Merrimac,  opposite  to  the  large 
island  on  which  we  had  spent  our  noon,  on  our  way  up 
the  river. 

[234] 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

The  next  morning  at  five  o'clock  they  had 
still  fifty  miles  to  run  before  the  wind,  which  had 
shifted  to  northwest  and  was  blowing  coldly  au 
tumnal. 

So  they  sped  along  past  all  their  camping- 
places,  until  they  were  passed  through  the  locks 
at  Cromwell's  Falls  in  Lowell,  about  noon,  and 
soon  launched  on  the  adverse  but  gentle  current 
of  the  Concord,  or  Musketaquid.  Up  this  they 
pressed  through  the  meadows,  with  oar  and  sail, 
until,  late  in  the  evening  of  September  13,  the 
boat  was  "  grating  against  the  bulrushes  of  its 
native  port,"  somewhere  near  the  mouth  of  the 
Mill  Brook.  They  drew  it  up  and  fastened  it 
by  its  chain  to  the  wild  apple  tree,  where  it 
was  easily  reached  from  the  Parkman  house,  to 
which  they  hastened  home.  They  had  success 
fully  achieved  an  adventure  as  widely  known 
now  as  Jason's  voyage  in  his  Argo;  and  their  vil 
lage  is  now  more  famous  than  Jason's  lolchos. 

When  Hawthorne  came,  three  years  later,  to 
bring  his  bride  to  the  Old  Manse,  for  a  few  years, 
he  desired  a  boat  for  his  excursions,  and  the  death 
of  John  Thoreau,  early  in  1842,  had  made  this 
boat  a  cause  of  grief  to  Henry.  In  the  spring  of 
1843  he  made  it  over  to  Hawthorne  and  Chan- 
ning,  who  had  then  come  to  live  and  die  in  Con- 

[235] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

cord;  and  he  became  the  most  intimate  friend  of 
these  two  men  of  kindred  genius. 

At  this  point  of  time  we  are  fortunate  in  having 
a  sketch  of  Thoreau's  physical,  intellectual,  and 
moral  nature,  drawn  by  one  of  his  neighbors  in 
Concord,  singularly  gifted  in  fathoming  the  souls 
of  men,  and  not  too  favorable  in  his  verdicts  — 
Hawthorne  himself.  After  the  close  of  their 
school,  and  before  his  brother's  death,  Thoreau 
had  gone,  by  invitation  of  Emerson,  to  live  in  his 
family  and  assist  him  in  the  care  of  his  garden  and 
woodlands,  with  some  care  also  of  the  publica 
tion  of  the  "Dial,"  which  had  by  1841  fallen 
mainly  upon  Emerson,  assisted  by  several  of  his 
friends.  Thoreau  as  gardener  and  mechanic  had 
achieved  a  reputation,  and  it  was  he,  most  likely, 
with  some  aid  from  George  Bradford  (the  brother 
of  Mrs.  Ripley,  whose  husband  leased  the  Manse 
to  Hawthorne),  who  put  the  garden  of  the  old 
parsonage  into  readiness  for  Mrs.  Hawthorne, 
when  she  should  come  to  it  as  a  bride  in  July, 
1842.  Accordingly,  Thoreau  was  one  of  the  first 
of  the  new  neighbors  of  the  Hawthornes  to  dine 
with  them  (August  31,  1842).  This  visit  drew 
out  this  entry  in  Hawthorne's  notebook:  — 

Mr.  Thoreau  is  a  singular  character;  a  young  man 
with  much  of  wild,  original  Nature  still  remaining  in 

[236] 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

him;  and  so  far  as  he  is  sophisticated,  it  is  in  a  way  and 
method  of  his  own.  He  is  as  ugly  as  sin;  long-nosed, 
queer-mouthed,  and  with  uncouth  and  somewhat  rus 
tic  manners,  —  though  courteous,  — corresponding 
with  such  an  exterior.  But  his  ugliness  is  of  an  honest 
and  agreeable  fashion,  and  becomes  him  much  better 
than  beauty. 

He  was  educated  at  Cambridge,  and  formerly  kept 
a  school  in  this  town ;  but  for  two  or  three  years  back 
he  has  repudiated  all  regular  means  of  getting  a  living, 
and  seems  inclined  to  lead  a  sort  of  Indian  life.  He  has 
been  for  some  time  an  inmate  of  Mr.  Emerson's  family, 
and  in  requital  he  labors  in  the  garden,  and  performs 
such  other  offices  as  may  suit  him:  being  entertained 
by  Mr.  Emerson  for  the  sake  of  what  true  manhood 
may  be  in  him. 

He  is  a  keen  and  delicate  observer  of  Nature,  —  a 
genuine  observer,  which  I  suspect  is  almost  as  rare  a 
character  as  even  an  original  poet.  And  Nature,  in 
return  for  his  love,  seems  to  adopt  him  as  her  especial 
child;  and  shows  him  secrets  which  few  others  are  al 
lowed  to  witness.  He  is  familiar  with  beast,  fish,  fowl 
and  reptile,  and  has  strange  stories  to  tell  of  adventures 
and  friendly  passages  with  these  lower  brethren  of 
mortality.  Herb  and  flower,  likewise,  wherever  they 
grow,  whether  in  garden  or  wildwood,  are  his  familiar 
friends.  He  is  on  intimate  terms  with  the  clouds  also, 
and  can  tell  the  portents  of  storms.  He  has  a  great  re 
gard  for  the  memory  of  the  Indian  tribes,  whose  wild 
life  would  have  suited  him  so  well;  and,  strange  to  say, 
he  seldom  walks  over  a  plowed  field  without  picking 

[237] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

up  an  arrow-point,  spearhead,  or  other  relic  of  the  red 
man.  With  all  this  he  has  more  than  a  tincture  of 
literature;  a  deep  and  true  taste  for  poetry,  especially 
for  the  elder  poets;  and  he  is  a  good  writer.  At  least 
he  has  written  a  good  article,  —  a  rambling  disquisi 
tion  on  Natural  History,  in  the  last  "Dial,"  which,  he 
says,  was  chiefly  made  up  from  journals  of  his  own 
observations.  Methinks  this  article  gives  a  very  fair 
image  of  mind  and  character,  —  so  true,  so  innate  and 
literal  in  observation,  —  yet  giving  the  spirit  as  well 
as  the  letter  of  what  he  sees;  even  as  a  lake  reflects  its 
wooded  banks,  showing  every  leaf,  —  yet  giving  the 
wild  beauty  of  the  whole  scene.  There  is  a  basis  of  good 
sense  and  moral  truth,  too,  which  is  a  reflection  of  his 
character. 

Considering  how  little  Thoreau  had  published 
at  this  time,  and  that  Hawthorne  had  hardly 
heard  of  him  before,  this  is  a  singularly  apt  ver 
dict.  Six  months  later,  with  that  perception  of 
repulsions  which  Hawthorne  so  keenly  had,  he 
adds  in  his  notebook  —  what  time  had  perhaps 
already  justified:  — 

Mr.  Emerson  seems  to  have  suffered  some  incon 
venience  from  his  experience  of  Mr.  Thoreau  as  an 
inmate.  It  may  well  be  that  such  a  sturdy,  uncom 
promising  person  is  fitter  to  meet  occasionally  in  the 
open  air  than  to  have  as  a  permanent  guest  at  table 
and  fireside. 

[  238  ] 


•  THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

A  few  years  after  this,  when  Charles  Malloy,  a 
young  Emersonian  from  Limerick,  in  Maine,  had 
come  up  to  Boston  to  hear  Emerson  lecture,  and 
to  borrow  his  copy  of  the  old  English  version  of 
the  Bhagavat  Ghita,  he  had  a  long  talk  with  the 
Concord  poet,  in  which  he  asked,  with  some  curi 
osity,  about  Thoreau,  whose  papers  in  the  " Dial" 
he  had  seen.  Emerson  "  spoke  of  him  kindly,  as  if 
he  liked  him";  but  added:  — 

He  is  a  man  of  incorruptible  integrity,  and  of  great 
ability  and  industry;  and  we  shall  yet  hear  much  more 
of  him.  But  he  affects  manners  rather  brusque,  does 
not  think  it  worth  while  to  use  the  cheap  service  of 
courtesy;  is  pugnacious  about  trifles;  likes  to  contra 
dict,  likes  to  say  No,  and  to  be  on  the  other  side.  You 
cannot  always  tell  what  will  please  him.  He  was  ill, 
and  I  sent  him  a  bottle  of  wine,  which  I  doubt  if  he 
ever  tasted.  I  regret  these  oddities.  He  needs  to  fall 
in  love,  to  sweeten  him  and  straighten  him. 

"A  pleasant  medicine,  I  thought"  reflected 
Malloy,  "but  it  does  n't  always  cure." 

Before  the  summer  of  1842,  when  Hawthorne's 
verdict  was  rendered,  it  had  become  evident  to 
a  few  others,  as  well  as  to  himself ,  that  Thoreau's 
vocation  was  to  literature  rather  than  to  science 
or  to  a  professorship.  In  their  school,  while  Henry 
was  the  more  exact  and  widely  read  scholar, 

[239  J 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

John  was  the  affable  and  persuasive  schoolmaster. 
John's  withdrawal  by  reason  of  health  in  1841  con 
vinced  Henry  that  teaching  was  for  him  a  means 
rather  than  an  end;  a  more  active  life  suited  him 
better,  and  he  chose  one  that  did  not  involve  him 
so  closely  in  those  social  engagements  which  he 
chose  to  meet  on  his  own  terms.  Mr.  Emerson's 
offer  of  a  home  met  these  wishes  seasonably;  and 
the  "Dial,"  for  which  he  now  wrote  often,  and 
aided  in  editing,  gave  him  a  means  of  publishing, 
although  no  pecuniary  profit.  He  felt  no  distaste 
or  disgust  at  manual  toil,  to  which  he  had  been 
bred  as  well  as  to  learning.  In  a  letter  to  Horace 
Greeley,  with  whom  he  soon  became  intimate, 
Henry  some  years  later  thus  declared  himself  on 
this  point :  — 

Scholars  are  apt  to  think  themselves  privileged  to 
complain,  as  if  their  lot  was  a  particularly  hard  one. 
How  much  we  have  heard  of  knowledge  under  difficul 
ties  —  of  poets  starving  in  garrets,  depending  on  the 
patronage  of  the  wealthy,  and  finally  dying  mad!  It 
is  time  that  men  sang  another  song.  There  is  no  rea 
son  why  the  scholar,  who  professes  to  be  a  little  wiser 
than  the  mass  of  men,  should  not  do  his  work  in  the 
dirt  occasionally;  and  by  means  of  his  superior  wisdom 
make  much  less  suffice  for  him.  A  wise  man  will  not  be 
jmf ortunate,  —  how  then  would  you  know  but  that 
he  was  a  fool? 

F  240  1 


THE   WEEK    ON    THE    RIVERS 

He  was  always  scrupulous  about  receiving  fa 
vors  without  returning  an  equivalent,  and  it  was 
his  habit  to  pay  board  at  his  father's  house. 
Among  the  many  Thoreau  manuscripts  that  have 
accumulated  with  me  in  the  half -century  that  I 
have  been  one  of  his  biographers,  I  found  this  cal 
culation,  entered  on  the  back  of  one  of  his  poems, 
showing  how  much  he  owed  and  paid  for  board 
and  borrowings,  during  the  winter  months  of 
1840-41,  while  he  was  still  teaching  in  Academy 
Lane,  and  a  little  before  he  went  to  live  at  Mr. 
Emerson's :  — 

Dec.  8, 1840,  Owe  Father  $41.73 

"   17,           Paid,  5.00 

Settled  up  to  March  22,  18^1.           Jan.  1,  1841,  Paid,  15.00 

Feb.  2,  1841,  Borrowed  1.35 

"  8,  1841,  Paid,  10.00 

To  use  the  back  of  a  poem  for  this  entry  shows 
how  frugal  of  paper  he  was,  while  making  such 
constant  and  repeated  use  of  it  as  he  did  in  jour 
nalizing;  and  still  more  in  transcribing  and  revis 
ing  for  the  printer,  making  two  or  three  drafts  of 
many  passages  — as,  for  instance,  in  these  en 
tries  for  the  "Week." 


CHAPTER  VII 

THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

THE  school  survived  the  river  voyage  more 
than  a  year  and  a  half — from  September  15, 
1839,  to  April  1,  1841.  It  closed,  as  already  men 
tioned,  because  of  the  failing  health  of  John. 
Among  the  later  pupils  was  Senator  Hoar,  who 
read  Greek  with  Henry,  and  afterwards  with 
Mrs.  Ripley,  before  entering  Harvard  in  1842.  In 
his  Autobiography  he  speaks  very  pleasantly  of 
Henry,  as  his  brother  Edward  and  his  sister  Eliz 
abeth  always  did.  But  their  mother,  the  young 
est  daughter  of  Roger  Sherman,  with  something 
of  her  father's  overplus  of  the  practical,  found 
fault  with  Henry  for  his  oddities;  and  about  this 
time  said,  "Henry  talks  about  Nature  just  as  if 
she  had  been  born  and  brought  up  in  Concord." 
Emerson  never  complained  of  that,  but  even  he 
was  a  severe  critic  of  Thoreau's  verse,  as  will  pres 
ently  appear.  In  his  own  opinion,  Thoreau's 
"first  printed  paper  of  consequence"  was  that  on 
Persius,  which  came  out  in  the  "Dial"  and  was 
written  early  in  1840;  but  many  of  the  best  parts 
of  the  "Week"  and  of  "Walden"  appear  in  their 

f  242  1 


THOREAU    IN    LITERATURE 

original  form  in  the  two  earliest  Journals,  the 
"Red  Book"  from  October  22,  1837,  to  June  11, 
1840,  and  one  of  396  pages  that  immediately  fol 
lowed  it.  From  the  first  "The  Service"  was  al 
most  entirely  made  up;  and  in  it  were  found  these 
passages,  of  the  same  period:  — 

We  must  live  on  the  stretch,  retiring  to  our  rest  like 
soldiers  on  the  eve  of  a  battle,  looking  forward  with 
ardor  to  the  strenuous  sortie  of  the  morrow.  To  the 
brave  soldier  the  rust  and  leisure  of  peace  are  harder 
than  the  fatigues  of  war.  As  our  bodies  court  physical 
encounters,  and  languish  in  the  mild  and  even  climate 
of  the  tropics,  so  our  souls  thrive  best  on  unrest  and 
discontent.  The  soul  is  a  sterner  master  than  any  King 
Frederick;  for  a  true  bravery  would  subject  our  bodies 
to  rougher  usage  than  even  a  grenadier  could  with 
stand.  We  too  are  dwellers  within  the  purlieus  of  the 
camp.  When  the  sun  breaks  through  the  morning 
mist,  I  seem  to  hear  the  din  of  war  louder  than  when 
his  chariot  thundered  on  the  plain  of  Troy.  The  thin 
folds  of  vapor,  spread  like  gauze  over  the  woods,  form 
extended  lawns  whereon  high  tournament  is  held:  — 

"  Before  each  van 

Prick  forth  the  aery  knights  and  couch  their  spears, 
Till  thickest  legions  close.'* 

Of  such  sort,  then,  be  our  Crusade;  which,  while  it 
inclines  chiefly  to  the  hearty  good  will  and  activity  of 
war,  rather  than  to  the  insincerity  and  sloth  of  peace, 
will  set  an  example  to  both  of  calmness  and  energy;  — 
as  unconcerned  for  victory  as  careless  of  defeat,  —  not 

[243] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

seeking  to  lengthen  our  term  of  service,  nor  to  cut  it 
short  by  a  reprieve,  —  but  earnestly  applying  our 
selves  to  the  campaign  before  us.  Nor  let  our  warfare 
be  a  boorish  and  uncourteous  one;  but  let  a  higher 
courtesy  attend  its  higher  chivalry,  —  though  not  to 
the  slackening  of  its  rougher  duties  and  severer  dis 
cipline.  So  our  camp  may  be  a  palaestra,  wherein  the 
dormant  energies  and  affections  of  men  may  tug  and 
wrestle;  not  to  their  discomfiture,  but  to  their  mutual 
exercise  and  development. 

What  were  Godfrey  and  Gonsalvo  unless  we  breathe 
a  life  into  them?  and  enacted  their  exploits  as  a  prel 
ude  to  our  own?  The  Past  is  the  canvas  on  which  our 
idea  is  painted,  — 

"  The  dim  prospectus  of  our  future  field." 

We  are  dreaming  of  what  we  are  to  do.  Methinks  I 
hear  the  clarion  sound,  and  the  clang  of  corslet  and 
buckler,  from  many  a  silent  hamlet  of  the  Soul.  The 
signal  gun  has  long  since  sounded,  and  we  are  not  yet 
on  our  posts.  Let  us  make  such  haste  as  the  morning, 
and  such  delay  as  the  evening. 

This  was  the  young  Thoreau's  theory  of  spirit 
ual  war  and  peace,  framed  with  little  relation  to 
the  commonplace  details  of  practical  life,  but  an 
idealist's  chart  for  great-circle  sailing  among  the 
isles  and  mainlands  of  Philosophy,  wherein  Tho 
reau's  guidebook  just  then  was  Emerson's  trea 
tise  entitled  "Nature."  Under  a  new  heading,  he 
went  on  in  his  "Service"  to  describe  — 

f  244  1 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

The  Qualities  of  the  Recruit 
Spes  sibi  quisque.  (Each  one  his  own  hope.)  VIRGIL. 

The  brave  man  is  the  elder  son  of  creation,  who  has 
stept  buoyantly  into  his  inheritance;  while  the  younger, 
who  is  the  coward,  waiteth  patiently  till  he  decease. 
He  rides  as  wide  of  the  Earth's  gravity  as  a  star;  and 
by  yielding  incessantly  to  all  the  impulses  of  the  Soul, 
is  constantly  drawn  upward,  and  becomes  a  fixed  star. 
His  bravery  deals  not  so  much  in  resolute  action  as 
in  healthy  and  assured  rest;  its  palmy  state  is  a  staying 
at  home  and  compelling  alliance  in  all  directions.  The 
brave  man  braves  nothing,  nor  knows  he  of  his  bravery. 
He  is  that  sixth  champion  against  Thebes,1  whom, 
when  the  proud  devices  of  the  rest  have  been  recorded, 
^Sschylus  describes  as 

"  Bearing  a  full-orbed  shield  of  solid  brass, 
But  there  was  no  device  upon  its  circle: 
For  to  be  just,  not  seem  so,  is  his  wish." 

All  omens  are  good  to  the  brave  man ;  the  spilling  of 
salt,  the  standing-up  of  a  fork  portend  good  to  him; 
for  he  feels  the  simplest  law  of  Nature  to  be  the  war 
rant  of  universal  innocence.  All  her  phenomena  con 
sent  with  him.  His  breath  is  the  moving  air,  his  mood 
is  the  Seasons.  Can  he  live  in  the  midst  of  Nature  and 
not  be  as  serene  as  she?  The  greatness  of  the  hero  is 
not  stretched;  he  does  not  stand  on  tiptoe,  but  on  the 

1  This  is  from  the  "Seven  against  Thebes,"  which  Thoreau  not 
only  read  in  college,  but  afterwards  made  of  it  a  literal  version, 
which  has  never  been  printed.  His  like  translation  of  the  "Prome 
theus  Bound"  is  printed.  For  his  wide  readings  in  Greek,  Latin, 
and  other  tongues,  see  pp.  260,  261. 

[  245  1 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

soles  of  his  feet.  He  is  not  acting  as  if  he  were  tall;  his 
nerves  are  unstrained;  he  reposes  by  as  many  points 
as  a  sick  man  on  his  couch.  How  many  wait  for  health 
and  warm  weather  to  be  heroic  and  noble !  Not  he  who 
procures  a  substitute  to  go  to  Florida,1  is  thus  exempt 
from  the  service;  he  is  to  gather  his  laurels  in  another 
field. 

The  religion  we  now  have  is  very  laic;  as  little  does 
it  creep  into  the  sermon  of  the  preacher  as  does  poetry 
into  the  lecture  of  the  Professor.  The  life  which  will 
best  bear  to  be  considered  may  be  not  only  without 
religion,  but  even  without  morality.  Occasionally  we 
rise  above  the  necessity  of  virtue,  into  an  unchange 
able  morning  light,  in  which  we  have  not  to  choose, 
(as  in  a  dilemma)  between  right  and  wrong;  but  may 
live  right  on,  and  breathe  the  circumambient  air.  This 
is  the  very  vitality  of  life;  no  moral  discourse  has  ever 
aimed  so  high  as  this  level.  The  preacher  is  silent  about 
it,  and  silent  must  ever  be;  for  he  who  knows  it  will  not 
preach.  For  the  most  part  the  best  man's  spirit  makes 
a  fearful  sprite  to  haunt  his  tomb.  The  ghost  of  a 
*  priest  is  no  better  than  that  of  a  highwayman.  It  is 
pleasant  even  to  hear  of  one  whose  life  has  been  such 
that,  after  death,  his  grave  blesses  the  region  round 
about, —  who  has  profaned  or  tabooed  no  place  by 
being  buried  in  it. 

1  The  Florida  War  was  an  ignoble  campaign,  carried  on  by  our 
small  army  under  Jackson  and  Van  Buren,  against  the  Seminole 
Indians  and  the  runaway  slaves  of  Georgia  and  Carolina,  whom  the 
Indians  protected.  It  went  on  for  years,  but  ended  about  1840.  In 
that  period  several  young  men  went  to  the  army  from  West  Point, 
to  which  they  were  sent  as  pupils  from  Concord. 

[  246  1 


THOREAU   IN    LITERATURE 

I  like  those  men  who  do  their  Maker  the  compliment 
not  to  fear  Him;  who  grow  bolder  as  great  crises  ap 
proach;  who  sit,  even  in  the  presence  of  the  gods,  and 
shrink  not:  and  are  timid,  if  it  must  be  so,  in  the  pres 
ence  of  mean  men;  who  literally  neither  fear  God  nor 
the  Devil,  but  love  and  respect  the  one  while  they  hate 
the  other. 

How  all  the  world  takes  care  of  a  great  man's  repu 
tation  but  himself!  Pity  that  man  who  "has  a  char 
acter  to  support,"  —  it  is  worse  than  a  very  large 
family.  We  seem  to  linger  in  manhood  but  to  tell  the 
dreams  of  our  childhood;  and  they  vanish  out  of 
memory  ere  we  have  learned  their  language.  When, 
then,  shall  we  execute  them?  Alas!  now  is  never  the 
time. 

The  moral  aspect  of  the  universe  is,  after  all,  but  a 
jaundice  imported  into  it  by  the  degeneracy  of  man. 
I  like  the  frankness  of  my  neighbor,  who  said  that  his 
hill-farm  was  "poor  stuff,  —  just  fit  to  hold  this  world 
together,"  —  and  whom  no  religious  scruples  could 
induce  to  retract  what  he  had  said.  No  doubt  the  lean 
soil  had  sharpened  his  wits;  and  he  saw  the  heavens  at 
a  lesser  angle  from  the  hill  than  from  the  plain.1  The 
gods  would  not  be  pleased,  though  a  man  were  dis- 

1  This  may  have  been  the  owner  of  the  "Hollowell  Farm,"  a 
small  demesne  on  the  ridge  overlooking  the  Musketaquid,  near 
the  "caterpillar  bridge"  leading  toward  Nine- Acre  Corner,  not  far 
from  the  foot  of  Fairhaven  Hill,  near  the  summit  of  which  are  the 
"  Cliffs,'*  much  visited  by  Emerson  in  his  afternoon  walks.  Al 
though  Thoreau  had  much  to  say  in  reproach  of  the  self-seeking 
farmers  of  Concord,  he  was  on  good  terms  with  the  small  farmers 
and  farm  laborers,  whom  he  daily  met. 

[247] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

satisfied  with  their  gifts,  if  he  clearly  demanded  greater. 
It  would  be  worth  while  to  remember,  daily,  that  we 
are  to  make  great  demands  on  Heaven  and  on  our 
selves. 

After  contemplating  a  nobler  life  than  usual,  the 
question  arises,  What  are  we  to  do?  The  relation  or 
sight  of  any  noble  life  unfits  us  for  all  common  work. 
It  subsides  into  our  very  bones,  and  excites  us  to 
muscular  exertion;  we  are  stronger  in  the  knees.  The 
past  then  seems  but  a  dim  prospective  of  our  future 
field.1  We  feel  our  future  deeds  bestir  themselves  within 
us,  and  move  grandly  to  a  consummation,  —  as  ships 
go  down  the  Thames.  Alas !  is  all  to  be  in  vain?  What 
we  really  need  to  know  is  very  simple.  The  course  of 
our  lives  lies  plain  before  us,  as  that  river's  valley;  we 
need  only  know  the  highland  from  the  main,  —  on  this 
side  the  mountains,  and  on  that  the  sea.  We  have  but 
to  try;  really  nothing  stands  in  the  way  to  success,  — 
everything  in  the  way  to  failure.  In  the  least  swing  of 
the  arm,  in  indignant  thought,  in  stern  content,  we 
conquer  our  foes. 

It  is  astonishing  how  fatal  is  every  step,  —  even  a 
step  forward.  It  seems  a  miracle  that  we  ever  take  an 
other,  —  so  rigid  and  unyielding  do  our  muscles  in 
stantly  become.  When  we  are  wisest,  we  are  the  great 
est  bigots.  We  do  not  stand  still  for  a  moment,  but 
a  crust  forms  over  us*  like  ice  on  still  water.  We  do 
not  believe  that  we  shall,  even  in  a  serener  and  wiser 
hour,  ever  see  ourselves :  we  are  never  visionary  enough 
to  be  prepared  for  what  the  next  hour  may  bring  forth. 
1  A  verse,  repeated  in  prose  from  p.  244. 
[  248  ] 


THOREAU    IN    LITERATURE 

In  these  gleanings  from  the  earlier  Journals,  long 
since  destroyed,  we  see  comparatively  little  of 
that  intimacy  with  outward  nature  which  makes 
the  charm  of  the  only  two  finished  books  that 
Thoreau  compiled  in  his  lifetime  from  the  Jour 
nals  while  they  existed.  It  was  not  until  after 
leaving  college  that  he  had  that  continuous  in 
timacy  by  day  and  by  night  which  appears  in  his 
mature  writings.  His  college  course  had  been 
studiously  prepared  for  in  the  public  schools  of 
Concord  and  its  Academy,  the  teachers  of  which 
were  apt  to  be  either  youths  in  Harvard  College, 
or  recent  graduates;  and  the  course  of  study  was 
strenuous.  Moreover,  the  Thoreau  family  was 
hard-working;  their  pencil  industry  employed  both 
the  father  and  the  sons  until  they  could  be  better 
employed  in  more  intellectual  tasks.  Hence  there 
was  the  less  leisure  for  the  study  of  nature. 

What  we  suppose  to  be  the  earliest  sample  of 
Thoreau's  verse  that  has  been  preserved,  is  a  bal 
lad,  written  in  his  college  period,  and  perhaps  the 
only  ballad  he  ever  attempted.  It  savors  both  of 
Tasso  and  of  Mrs.  Hemans,  whose  poems  were 
even  more  popular  in  America  than  in  England; 
was  never  offered  for  printing  anywhere,  but  was 
cherished  by  some  aunt  or  cousin,  and  remained, 
like  much  of  his  later  verse,  in  possession  of  the 

[249] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

Thatcher  family  at  Bangor,  where  Mr.  Bixby,  an 
unwearied  Thoreau  collector,  found  it  in  1906. 
In  Thoreau's  "Service"  appear  traces  of  his  early 
interest  in  the  Crusades,  and  the  contests  between 
Christian  and  Moor  in  Spain;  some  of  which  will 
be  quoted  hereafter.  The  following  ballad  cele 
brates  Tasso's  hero  — 

Godfrey  of  Boulogne  1 

The  moon  hung  low  o'er  Provence  vales, 

'T  was  night  upon  the  sea; 
Fair  France  was  wooed  by  Afric  gales, 

And  paid  in  minstrelsy. 
Along  the  Rhone  there  moves  a  band, 

Their  banner  to  the  breeze, 
Of  mail-clad  men  with  iron  hand, 

And  steel  on  breast  and  knees. 
The  herdsman  following  his  droves 

Far  in  the  night  alone, 
Read  faintly  through  the  olive  groves,  — 

'T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

The  mist  still  slumbered  on  the  heights, 

The  glaciers  lay  in  shade, 
The  stars  withdrew  their  faded  lights, 

The  moon  went  down  the  glade. 

1  The  plot  of  this  ballad  is  good,  —  a  series  of  pictures  at  all 
seasons  of  the  day,  with  appropriate  indications  of  the  hour,  —  and 
the  Crusaders'  army  hastening  on  to  rescue  the  Holy  Sepulchre. 
Nor  is  the  manner  bad. 

[250] 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

Proud  Jura  saw  the  day  from  far, 

And  showed  it  to  the  plain; 
She  heard  the  din  of  coming  war, 

But  told  it  not  again: 
The  goatherd  seated  on  the  rocks, 

Dreaming  of  battles  none, 
Was  wakened  by  his  startled  flocks,  — 

'T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

Night  hung  upon  the  Danube 's  stream, 

Deep  midnight  on  the  vales, 
Along  the  shore  no  beacons  gleam, 

No  sound  is  on  the  gales. 
The  Turkish  lord  has  banished  care, 

The  harem  sleeps  profound, 
Save  one  fair  Georgian  sitting  there 

Upon  the  Turkish  ground. 
The  lightning  flashed  a  transient  gleam, 

A  glancing  banner  shone, 
A  host  swept  swiftly  down  the  stream,  — 

'T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

'T  was  noon  upon  Byzantium, 

On  street  and  tower  and  sea, 
On  Europe's  edge  a  warlike  hum 

Of  gathering  chivalry. 
A  troop  went  boldly  through  the  throng 

Of  Ethiops,  Arabs,  Huns, 
Jews,  Greeks  and  Turks,  —  to  right  the  wrong; 

Their  swords  flashed  thousand  suns: 
Their  banner  cleaved  Byzantium's  dust, 

And  like  the  sun  it  shone; 
Upon  their  armor  was  no  rust,  — 

'T  was  Godfrey  of  Boulogne. 

[251  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Here  was  no  implied  moral,  and  scarcely  any 
symbolism;  it  was  a  series  of  pictures  vividly  ex 
pressing  the  movement  of  an  armed  host  to  battle 
for  the  Lord.  But  in  his  prose,  some  years  after 
this  spirited  verse  was  written,  the  warfare  cele 
brated  had  become  symbolic  —  a  martial  attitude 
in  a  civil  life,  mingled  in  its  expression  with  fan 
ciful  and  paradoxical  allegations.  In  that  rather 
ill-arranged  essay  called  "The  Service,"  which 
Thoreau  offered  for  the  "Dial,"  late  in  1840,  there 
appeared,  along  with  magnificent  pictures  of  morn 
ing  and  night,  seen  in  the  rambles  of  a  poet,  such 
appeals  for  war  as  these :  — 

Not  How  Many,  but  Where  the  Enemy  Are 

We  look  in  vain  over  earth  for  a  Roman  greatness, 
to  take  up  the  gantlet  which  the  heavens  throw  down. 
Idomeneus  would  not  have  demurred  at  the  freshness 
of  the  last  morning  that  rose  to  us,  as  unfit  occasion  to 
display  his  valor  in;  and  on  some  such  evening  as  this, 
methinks,  that  Grecian  fleet  came  to  anchor  in  the  bay 
of  Aulis.  Would  that  it  were  to  us  the  eve  of  a  more 
than  ten  years'  war,  —  a  tithe  of  whose  exploits  and 
Achillean  withdrawals,  and  godly  interferences,  would 
stock  a  library  of  Iliads. 

Better  that  we  have  some  of  that  testy  spirit  of 
knight-errantry;  and  (if  we  are  so  blind  as  to  think  the 
world  is  not  rich  enough  nowadays  to  afford  a  real  foe 
to  combat)  with  our  trusty  swords  and  double-handed 

[  252  ] 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

maces,  hew  and  mangle  some  unreal  phantom  of  the 
brain.  In  the  pale  and  shivering  fogs  of  the  morning, 
gathering  themselves  up  betimes,  and  withdrawing 
sluggishly  to  their  daylight  haunts,  —  I  see  Falsehood 
sneaking  from  the  full  blaze  of  Truth;  and  with  good 
relish  I  could  do  execution  on  their  rearward  ranks, 
with  the  first  brand  that  came  to  hand. 

We  too  are  such  puny  creatures  as  to  be  put  to 
flight  by  the  sun,  and  suffer  our  ardor  to  grow  cool  as 
his  increases;  our  own  short-lived  chivalry  sounds  a 
retreat  with  the  fumes  and  vapors  of  the  night;  and  we 
turn  to  meet  mankind,  with  a  meek  face  preaching 
peace,  and  such  non-resistance  as  the  chaff  that  rides 
before  the  whirlwind.  Let  not  our  peace  be  proclaimed 
by  the  rust  upon  our  swords,  or  our  inability  to  draw 
them ;  but  let  Peace  at  least  have  so  much  work  on  her 
hands  as  to  keep  those  swords  bright  and  sharp. 

The  very  dogs  that  bay  the  moon  from  farmyards 
o'  these  nights,  do  evince  more  heroism  than  is  tamely 
barked  forth  in  all  the  civil  exhortations  and  war- 
summons  of  the  age.  That  day  and  night,  which  should 
be  set  down  indelibly  in  men's  hearts,  must  be  learned 
from  the  pages  of  our  almanack.  And  so  the  time 
lapses  without  epoch  or  era,  and  we  know  some  half- 
score  of  mornings  and  evenings  by  tradition  only. 
Men  are  a  circumstance  to  themselves,  instead  of  caus 
ing  the  Universe  to  stand  around,  the  mute  witness  of 
their  manhood.  .  .  . 

"Discretion  is  the  wise  man's  soul,"  says  the  poet; 
so  does  his  discretion  give  prevalence  to  his  valor.  His 
prudence  may  safely  go  many  strides  beyond  the 

[  253  1 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

utmost  rashness  of  the  coward;  for  while  he  observes 
strictly  the  golden  mean,  he  seems  to  run  through  all 
extremes  with  impunity.  The  golden  mean  in  ethics, 
as  in  physics,  is  the  centre  of  the  system,  and  that 
about  which  all  revolves ;  and  though  to  a  distant  and 
plodding  planet  it  be  the  uttermost  extreme,  yet  one 
day,  when  that  planet's  year  is  complete,  it  will  be 
found  central.  They  who  are  alarmed  lest  Virtue 
should  so  far  demean  herself  as  to  be  extremely  good, 
have  not  yet  wholly  embraced  her.  .  .  . 

The  coward  wants  resolution,  which  the  brave  man 
can  do  without.  He  recognizes  no  faith,  but  a  creed; 
thinking  this  straw,  by  which  the  coward  is  moored, 
does  him  good  service,  because  his  sheet  anchor  does 
not  drag.  In  his  religion  the  ligature,  which  should  be 
muscle  and  sinew,  is  rather  like  that  thread  which  the 
accomplices  of  Cylon  held  in  their  hands  when  they 
went  out  from  the  temple  of  Minerva;  the  other  end 
being  attached  to  the  statue  of  the  goddess.  But  fre 
quently,  as  in  their  case,  the  thread  breaks,  and  he  is 
left  without  an  asylum. 

In  the  meanest  are  all  the  materials  of  manhood; 
only  they  are  not  rightly  disposed.  We  say  justly  that 
the  weak  person  is  "flat,"  —  for,  like  all  flat  sub 
stances,  he  does  not  stand  in  the  direction  of  his 
strength,  that  is,  on  his  edge.  Most  things  are  strong 
in  one  direction,  —  a  straw  longitudinally,  a  board  in 
the  direction  of  its  edge,  a  knee  transversely  to  its 
grain.  But  the  brave  man  is  a  perfect  sphere,  which 
cannot  fall  on  a  flat  side,  and  is  equally  strong  every 
way.  The  grand  and  majestic  have  always  somewhat 

[2541 


THOREAU    IN    LITERATURE 

of  the  undulatoriness  of  the  sphere.  It  is  the  secret  of 
majesty  in  the  rolling  gait  of  the  elephant,  and  of  all 
grace  in  action  and  in  Art.  Always  the  line  of  beauty 
is  a  curve. 

When  with  pomp  a  huge  sphere  is  drawn  along  the 
streets,  by  the  efforts  of  a  hundred  men,  I  seem  to  dis 
cover  each  striving  to  imitate  its  gait  and  keep  step 
with  it,  —  if  possible,  to  swell  to  its  own  diameter. 
What  shame  then,  that  our  lives,  which  might  so  well 
be  the  source  of  planetary  motion,  and  sanction  the 
order  of  the  spheres,  should  be  full  of  abruptness  and 
angularity,  so  as  not  to  roll  nor  move  majestically. 

There  is  often  a  sly  humor  in  what  Thoreau  seri 
ously  wrote,  of  which  here  is  perhaps  an  instance. 
He  seems  to  be  upholding  the  paradox  of  his  friend 
Alcott,  that  the  human,  individual,  soul  has  origi 
nated  nature,  which  is  gravely  stated  as  poetic 
doctrine  in  Emerson's  first  book.  But  the  illus 
tration  comes  from  the  grotesque  performance  of 
Thoreau's  Whig  seniors  in  Concord,  a  month  be 
fore  this  essay  was  finished,  —  when  the  village 
squires,  with  the  noisy  assistance  of  the  boys, 
rolled  a  huge  ball,  on  Bunker  Hill  Day,  from  Con 
cord  to  Charlestown,  as  a  symbol  of  the  pop 
ular  movement  against  President  Van  Buren  in 
that  presidential  election  of  1840.  Fancy  Colonel 
Whiting  and  Major  Barrett,  with  the  Brooks  and 
Hoar  families,  thus  engaged  and  chanting  — 

f  255  1 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

"  It  is  the  Ball  a-rolling  on 
For  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too." 

Young  Thoreau  must  have  seen  the  joke  of  it,  and 
the  corpulence  of  Major  Barrett  may  have  sug 
gested  the  majestic  motions  of  the  elephants.  In 
contrast  to  this  grave  burlesque,  take  this  speci 
men  of  his  poetic  prose,  from  the  same  unequal 
essay:  — 

When  my  eye  falls  on  the  stupendous  masses  of  the 
clouds,  tossed  into  such  irregular  greatness  across  the 
cope  of  my  sky,  I  feel  that  their  grandeur  is  thrown 
away  on  the  meanness  of  my  employments.  In  vain 
the  sun,  through  morning  and  noon,  rolls  defiance  to 
Man;  and  as  he  sinks  behind  his  cloudy  fortress  in  the 
west,  challenges  him  to  equal  greatness  in  his  own 
career.  But  from  his  humbleness  Man  looks  up  to  the 
domes  and  minarets  and  gilded  battlements  of  the 
Eternal  City,  and  is  content  to  be  a  suburban  dweller 
outside  the  walls.  But  true  Art  is  not  merely  a  sublime 
consolation  and  holiday  labor,  which  the  gods  have 
given  to  sickly  mortals:  it  is  that  masterpiece,  a  human 
life,  wherein  you  might  discover  more  than  the  fresh 
ness  of  Guido's  Aurora,  or  the  mild  light  of  Titian's 
landscapes.  No  bald  imitation,  nor  even  rival  of  Na 
ture;  but  rather^the  restored  original  of  which  she  is  the 
reflection.  For  such  a  masterpiece  as  this,  whole  gal 
leries  of  Greece  and  Italy  are  a  mere  mixing  of  colors, 
and  quarrying  of  marble. 

Yet,  as  this  very  essay  proves,  Thoreau  did 
[256] 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

not  undervalue  Greece,  and  in  some  lines  written 
not  much  later  he  said:  — 

"  I  thank  the  gods  for  Greece, 
That  permanent  realm  of  peace; 
For  as  the  rising  moon,  far  in  the  night, 
Chequers  the  shade  with  her  forerunning  light, 
So  in  my  darkest  hour  my  senses  seem 
To  catch  from  her  Acropolis  a  gleam."  * 

From  Plutarch,  whom  he  early  and  extensively 
read,  as  most  of  the  Concord  circle  did,  he  drew 
out  of  its  obscurity  this  passage:  — 

It  was  a  conceit  of  Plutarch,  —  accounting  for  the 
preference  given  to  signs  observed  on  the  left  hand, 
—  that  men  may  have  thought  "things  terrestrial 
and  mortal  directly  over  against  heavenly  and  divine 
things;  and  do  conjecture  that  the  things  which  to  us 
are  on  the  left  hand,  the  gods  send  down  from  their 
right  hand." 

The  passage  from  the  Morals  is  in  those  singu 
lar  "  Romika  "  (Roman  questions,  113  in  num 
ber)  which  Plutarch  tried  to  answer.  This  one 
is,  "  Why  omens  that  are  called  sinister  in  taking 
auspices  are  reckoned  favorable?"  He  answers, 
"  Perhaps  't  was  because  men  think  that  earthly 
and  mortal  things  lie  opposite  to  heavenly  and 

1  These  lines  were  first  printed  from  a  copy  given  me  by  So 
phia  soon  after  Henry  died. 

[257] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

divine  things;  and  thus  conjecture  that  the  gods 
send  forth  from  their  right  hands  what  to  us  is 
on  the  left  hand." 

The  citation  shows  with  what  thoroughness  our 
young  philosopher  read  Plutarch. 

Thoreau's  constant  habit  was  contrast,  —  an 
oxymoron  in  rhetoric  which  would  scarcely  have 
occurred  to  any  other,  and  often  appeared  ex 
treme  to  Emerson,  though  fond  himself  of  what  he 
calls  "the  stairway  of  surprise."  This  principle 
of  contrast  is  at  work  in  the  prose  passage  from 
the  manuscript  of  the  "Winter  Walk"  now  be 
fore  me:  — 

From  our  comfortable  pillows  we  lend  our  warm  sym 
pathy  to  the  Siberian  traveller,  on  whose  morning 
route  the  sun  is  rising,  and  in  imagination  frequent  the 
encampment  of  the  lonely  fur-trader  on  Lake  Winni 
peg;  and  climb  the  Ural  or  the  Jura,  or  range  the  Andes 
and  the  Rocky  Mountains,  or  traverse  the  shaggy  soli 
tudes  of  the  glaciers,  —  in  our  dreams  hugging  the 
furs  about  us.  Or  perhaps  we  have  visions  of  Greece 
and  Italy,  the  ^Egean  Sea  and  the  Sicilian  coast;  or 
anticipate  the  coming  in  of  Spring  like  a  pomp,  through 
the  gate  of  a  city. 

This  passage,  written  about  1842,  shows,  as  do 
many  of  his  college  essays,  how  early  Thoreau 
possessed  that  grace  of  style,  that  felicity  in  the 

f  258  1 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

choice  of  words,  for  which  many  toil  in  vain. 
Channing,  with  his  usual  acuteness,  somewhere 
says,  "In  much  that  Thoreau  wrote  there  was  a 
philological  side;  this  needs  to  be  thoughtfully 
considered."  It  was  a  natural  result  of  his  acquisi 
tion  of  many  languages,  and  his  notice  of  their 
relation  one  to  another.  But  I  have  imputed  this 
elegance  to  the  mixture  of  French  and  Scottish 
blood  in  his  ancestry;  both  those  nations  having, 
by  long  descent,  graceful  rhetoric  without  con 
scious  art,  far  beyond  the  Anglo-Saxon,  with  all 
his  vigor,  imagination,  and  resource.  Thoreau 
had  the  vigor  of  one  line  in  his  mixed  pedigree  and 
the  grace  of  another.  As  he  went  on  writing, — 
his  chief  business  in  life,  —  he  brought  this  magic 
of  style  more  and  more  into  his  pages;  thus  to 
equalize  what  had  been  at  first  (as  with  most 
young  authors)  an  unequal  and  fitful  manner  of 
expressing  profound  thought.  In  his  frequent 
verse,  much  of  which  he  destroyed  after  Emer 
son's  unfavorable  criticism,  this  inequality  and 
fitfulness  was  never  quite  overcome.  Like  Chan 
ning,  who  wrote  much  more  verse,  he  did  not  seem 
capable  of  passing  judgment  on  his  own  diction 
and  rhythm  in  poetry.  Poets  by  nature,  the  whole 
science  of  poetic  diction  was  not  revealed  to  them, 
though  they  had  the  full  range  of  it. 

[  259  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Thoreau  took  the  Plutarch  passage  from  the 
old  translation  of  Dryden's  day,  since  revised 
and  edited  by  Professor  Goodwin,  of  Harvard, 
with  an  introduction  by  Emerson.  How  wide  was 
his  self-assigned  course  of  reading  in  poetry, 
philosophy,  and  history,  among  the  ancient  clas 
sics,  was  revealed  to  me  by  his  autograph  list 
of  such  books,  found  among  his  papers  of  the 
"Dial"  period,  and  which  includes  fifty  authors, 
Greek  and  Latin,  and  a  few  in  other  languages  than 
English.  It  would  not  be  safe  to  say  that  he  had 
read  all  these  authors  before  he  was  thirty  — 
that  is,  in  1847;  but  he  had  then  certainly  read 
and  translated  some  of  the  most  difficult.  When 
I  first  knew  him,  at  seven-and-thirty,  he  read 
Latin  and  French  as  readily  as  English;  Greek 
without  difficulty;  German,  Italian,  and  Spanish 
more  or  less;  and  had  some  knowledge  of  sev 
eral  dialects  of  the  American  Indians.  Without  a 
knowledge  of  Persian,  Sanscrit,  or  Chinese,  he  had 
much  acquaintance,  through  translations,  either 
French  or  Latin,  of  writers  in  those  languages, 
and  could  have  competed  with  J.  R.  Lowell  at 
the  same  age.  He  was  at  forty-four  a  much  bet 
ter  scholar,  in  the  classic  sense,  than  Emerson, 
Channing,  or  Hawthorne;  but  as  Channing  out 
lived  him  by  nearly  thirty  years,  extending  his 

[  260  ] 


THOREAU    IN    LITERATURE 

reading  all  that  time,  he  was,  before  his  death  in 
1901,  more  fully  informed  on  most  of  Thoreau's 
subjects  than  his  friend  was  in  1861,  when  he  vis 
ited  Ohio,  Illinois,  and  Minnesota,  with  some 
journeys  through  Wisconsin  and  Michigan. 

I  will  give  the  list  of  old  authors  in  the  Appendix; 
but  in  advance  may  say  that  among  them  were 
most  of  the  Greek  poets,  whom  he  had  read  in  the 
original;  the  Greek  historians  and  orators,  read 
either  in  Greek  or  in  versions;  the  Fables  trans 
mitted  by  Babrius  and  Phsedrus;  Plato,  Aristotle, 
Theophrastus,  Plutarch,  Lucian,  Epictetus,  in  the 
original  or  translated;  much  ascribed  to  Pythag 
oras,  Epicurus,  Synesius,  and  the  Neo-Platonists; 
most  of  the  Latin  poets  down  to  Claudian,  whom 
he  quotes;  Cicero,  Caesar,  Sallust,  Livy,  Seneca, 
the  two  Plinys,  Tacitus,  Josephus,  Boethius,  the 
"Confessions"  of  St.  Augustine;  Stanley's  quaint 
"History  of  Philosophy,"  and  a  French  version 
of  the  "Morals  of  Confucius." 

From  many  of  these  he  has  quoted  in  some  of 
the  thirty  volumes  in  which  more  or  less  of  his 
writings  now  appear. 

In  a  very  different  measure  from  the  ballad  al 
ready  given  were  other  verses  excluded  by  Emer 
son  from  the  "Winter  Walk"  when  he  printed 
it  in  the  "Dial."  They  are  these:  — 

[261  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

A  Winter  and  Spring  Scene 

The  willows  droop, 
The  alders  stoop, 
The  pheasants  group 

Beneath  the  snow; 
The  fishes  glide 
From  side  to  side, 
In  the  clear  tide, 

The  ice  below. 

The  ferret  weeps, 
The  marmot  sleeps, 
The  owlet  keeps 

In  his  snug  nook. 
The  rabbit  leaps, 
The  mouse  out-creeps, 
The  flag  out-peeps 

Beside  the  brook. 

The  snowdust  falls, 
The  otter  crawls, 
The  partridge  calls 

Far  in  the  wood; 
The  traveller  dreams, 
The  tree-ice  gleams, 
The  blue  jay  screams 

In  angry  mood. 

The  apples  thaw, 
The  ravens  caw, 
The  squirrels  gnaw 
The  frozen  fruit; 

[  262  ] 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

To  their  retreat 
I  track  the  feet 
Of  mice  that  eat 
The  apple's  root. 

The  axe  resounds, 
And  bay  of  hounds, 
And  tinkling  sounds 

Of  wintry  fame; 
The  hunter's  horn 
Awakes  the  dawn, 
On  fields  forlorn, 

And  frights  the  game. 

The  tinkling  fair 
Doth  echo  bear 
To  rabbit's  lair, 

With  dreadful  din; 
She  scents  the  air, 
And  far  doth  fare, 
Returning  where 

She  did  begin. 

The  fox  stands  still 
Upon  the  hill,  — 
Not  fearing  ill 

From  trackless  wind; 
But  to  his  foes 
The  still  wind  shows 
In  treacherous  snows, 

His  tracks  behind. 

Now  melts  the  snow 
In  the  warm  sun; 

[263  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

The  meadows  flow, 

The  streamlets  run. 
The  Spring  is  born, 

The  wild  bees  bum, 

The  insects  hum, 

And  trees  drop  gum, 
And  winter  *s  gone, 

And  summer 's  come. 

The  chic-a-dee 
Lisps  in  the  tree, 
The  winter  bee 

Not  fearing  frost; 
The  small  nuthatch 
The  bark  doth  scratch, 
Some  worm  to  catch 

At  any  cost. 

The  catkins  green 
Cast  o'er  the  scene 
A  summer  sheen, 

A  genial  glow. 

I  melt,  I  flow, 
And  rippling  run, 

Like  melting  snow 
In  this  warm  sun. 

This  also,  like  the  ballad,  is  in  a  vein  of  verse 
that  Thoreau  seldom  attempted;  but  it  is  very 
descriptive,  and  worth  preserving,  in  spite  of  cer 
tain  defects  of  rhyme  and  metre.  Here,  too,  as  in 
the  ballad,  there  is  little  symbolism  —  all  is  plain 
and  slightly  grotesque  fact.  But  in  my  next  selec- 

[264] 


THOREAU   IN   LITERATURE 

tion,  which  dates  back  to  the  river  voyage  of 
1839,  though  revised  since,  the  symbolic  and  orac 
ular  are  the  main  substance  of  a  form  of  verse 
somewhat  resembling  the  last  poem. 

Our  Country  Neighbors 

The  respectable  folks,  — 
Where  dwell  they? 
They  whisper  in  the  oaks, 
And  they  sigh  in  the  hay; 

Summer  and  winter,  night  and  day, 

Out  on  the  meadow,  there  dwell  they. 

They  drink  at  the  brooks  with  the  pilgrim's  cup, 

And  with  the  owl  and  the  nighthawk  they  sup; 

They  suck  the  breath  of  the  morning  wind, 

And  they  make  their  own  all  the  good  they  find. 

They  never  die, 

Nor  snivel  nor  cry, 

For  they  have  leased  Immortality. 

A  sound  estate  forever  they  mend,  — 

To  every  asker  readily  lend,  — 

To  the  ocean,  wealth, 

To  the  meadow,  health, 

To  Time  his  length, 

To  the  rocks,  strength; 

To  the  stars,  light, 

To  the  weary,  night, 

To  the  busy,  day,' 

To  the  idle,  play,  — 

And  so  their  good  cheer  never  ends, 

For  all  are  their  debtors  and  all  their  friends. 

[265] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

This  enigma  is  on  a  par  with  that  concerning 
which  Edward  Watson,  of  Clark's  Island,  ques 
tioned  Thoreau  when  he  landed  on  that  poet's 
domain,  after  starting  to  wade  over  from  Dux- 
bury  at  low  tide,  and  being  rescued  and  set  on 
shore  by  Mr.  Watson's  handy  boat.  Thoreau  hav 
ing  mentioned  in  "Walden"  three  things  that  he 
had  lost  and  never  found,  Mr.  Watson  inquired 
into  the  meaning  of  that  passage  —  to  which  the 
author  evasively  replied,  "Have  you  never  lost 
things?"  Upon  this  the  puzzled  old  gentleman 
mused  thus:  "A  pretty  answer  to  give  a  fellow." 
There  are  charades  that  have  a  varying  answer  — 
a  different  one  for  every  type  of  guesser;  and  there 
we  may  leave  the  most  obscure  of  Thoreau's  prob 
lems,  given  out  for  others  to  solve.  Thus  in  Feb 
ruary,  1841,  he  wrote  in  his  Journal:  "Silence  has 
no  end;  speech  is  but  the  beginning  of  it." 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SYMBOLISM   AND   PARADOX 

THE  most  symbolical  and  mystical  of  all  Tho- 
reau's  poems,  and  the  one  from  which  Emerson 
quoted  with  the  most  satisfaction,  was  brought 
to  me  for  publication  in  the  "  Boston  Common 
wealth"  in  the  spring  of  1863,  and  I  printed  it 
there  in  full,  as  Sophia  gave  it,  wholly,  I  think,  in 
his  handwriting,  and  of  an  arrangement  for  which 
Thoreau  himself  must  have  been  responsible.  It 
had  been  growing  into  that  form  for  years,  and 
portions  of  it  exist  in  other  connections.  Where 
it  varies  from  the  form  in  which  Emerson  printed 
parts  of  it,  the  variations  may  be  Thoreau's  own, 
or  may  be  Emerson's  emendations.  I  here  give 
it  as  it  was  handed  me  by  Sophia:  — 

Inspiration  l 

Whatever  we  leave  to  God  God  does, 
And  blesses  us: 

The  work  we  choose  should  be  our  own, 
God  lets  alone. 

1  In  this  poem  it  is  best  to  attend  to  the  profound  and  inner 
meaning  of  words,  —  their  philological  sense,  as  Channing  said. 

[267] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

If  with  light  head  erect  I  sing, 

Though  all  the  Muses  lend  their  force, 

From  my  poor  love  of  anything,  — 

The  verse  is  weak  and  shallow  as  its  source. 

But  if  with  bended  neck  I  grope, 

Listening  behind  me  for  my  wit, 
With  faith  superior  to  hope,  — 

More  anxious  to  keep  back  than  forward  it; 

Making  my  soul  accomplice  there 

Unto  the  flame  my  heart  hath  lit,  — 
Then  will  the  verse  forever  wear; 

Time  cannot  bend  the  line  which  God  hath  writ. 

Always  the  general  show  of  things 

Floats  in  review  before  my  mind, 
And  such  true  love  and  reverence  brings, 

That  sometimes  I  forget  that  I  am  blind. 

But  now  there  comes,  unsought,  unseen, 

Some  clear,  divine  electuary, 
And  I,  who  had  but  sensual  been, 

Grow  sensible,  —  and  as  God  is,  am  wary. 

I  hearing  get,  who  had  but  ears, 

And  sight,  who  had  but  eyes  before; 
I  moments  live,  who  lived  but  years, 

And  Truth  discern,  who  knew  but  Learning's  lore. 

I  hear  beyond  the  range  of  sound, 

I  see  beyond  the  range  of  sight, 
New  earths  and  skies  and  seas  around; 

And  in  my  day  the  sun  doth  pale  his  light. 

[  268  ] 


SYMBOLISM  AND   PARADOX 

A  clear  and  ancient  harmony 

Pierces  my  soul  through  all  its  din, 

As  through  its  utmost  melody,  — 
Farther  behind  than  they,  —  farther  within. 

More  swift  its  bolt  than  lightning  is, 
Its  voice  than  thunder  is  more  loud; 

It  doth  expand  my  privacies 
To  all,  and  leaves  me  single  in  the  crowd. 

It  speaks  with  such  authority, 

With  so  serene  and  lofty  tone, 
That  idle  Time  runs  gadding  by, 

And  leaves  me  with  Eternity  alone. 

Then  chiefly  is  my  natal  hour, 

And  only  then  my  prime  of  life; 
Of  Manhood's  strength  it  is  the  flower,  — 

'T  is  Peace's  end,  and  War's  beginning  strife. 

It  comes  in  summer's  broadest  noon, 
By  a  grey  wall,  or  some  chance  place; 

Unseasoning  Time,  insulting  June,  — 
Vexing  the  day  with  its  presuming  face. 

Such  fragrance  round  my  couch  it  makes, 
More  rich  than  are  Arabian  drugs, 

That  my  soul  scents  its  life,  and  wakes 
The  body  up  beneath  its  perfumed  rugs. 


Such  is  the  Muse,  —  the  heavenly  maid, 
The  star  that  guides  our  mortal  course; 

Which  shows  where  Life's  true  kernel 's  laid, 
Its  wheat's  fine  flour,  and  its  undying  force. 

[  269  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

She  with  one  breath  attunes  the  spheres, 

And  also  my  poor  human  heart; 
With  one  impulse  propels  the  years 

Around,  —  and  gives  my  throbbing  pulse  its  start. 

I  will  not  doubt,  forever  more, 

Nor  falter  from  a  steadfast  faith; 
For  though  the  System  be  turned  o'er, 

God  takes  not  back  the  word  which  once  he  saith. 

I  will  then  trust  the  love  untold, 

Which  not  my  worth  nor  want  hath  bought, 
Which  wooed  me  young,  and  woos  me  old, 

And  to  this  evening  hath  me  brought. 

My  memory  I  '11  educate 

To  know  the  one  historic  truth; 
Remembering  to  the  latest  date 

The  only  true  and  sole  immortal  youth. 

Be  but  Thy  inspiration  given,  — 

No  matter  through  what  danger  sought,  — 

I'll  fathom  Hell,  or  climb  to  Heaven,  — 
And  yet  esteem  that  cheap  which  Love  hath  bought. 


Fame  cannot  tempt  the  bard 
Who 's  famous  with  his  God, 

Nor  laurel  him  reward 

Who  hath  his  Maker's  nod. 

Now  Emerson's  abridgment  of  this  confession 
of  faith  is  doubtless  a  finer  poem  than  this  longer, 
irregular  version;  but  I  believe  this  has  the  merit 

[270  ] 


SYMBOLISM   AND   PARADOX 

that  we  find  in  Herbert  and  Donne,  of  the  quaint- 
ness  that  distinguishes  so  many  mystics.  There  is 
a  prayer  of  Thoreau's  which  Emerson  introduced 
in  a  brief  essay  on  "Prayers"  hi  the  "Dial,"  and 
only  known  to  be  Thoreau's  after  his  death, 
twenty  years  later,  though  often  quoted:  —  / 

Great  God !  I  ask  thee  for  no  meaner  pelf 
Than  that  I  may  not  disappoint  myself : 
That  in  my  action  I  may  soar  as  high      ; 
As  I  can  now  discern  with  this  clear  eye; 

And  next  in  value,  which  thy  kindness  lends, 
That  I  may  greatly  disappoint  my  friends; 
Howe'er  they  think  or  hope  that  it  may  be, 
They  may  not  dream  how  Thou  'st  distinguished  me; 

That  my  weak  hand  may  equal  my  firm  faith, 
And  my  life  practice  more  than  my  tongue  saith; 
That  my  low  conduct  may  not  show, 

Nor  my  relenting  lines, 
That  I  Thy  purpose  did  not  know, 
Or  overrated  Thy  designs. 

It  was  this  mystical  side  of  his  nature  (on  an 
other  side  so  practical  in  its  endowment)  which 
gave  him  an  early  familiarity  with  the  Bhagavat 
Ghita  and  other  books  of  Oriental  devotion. 
Emerson  showed  him  the  way,  and  Alcott  en 
couraged  this  tendency;  but  Thoreau  went  a  little 
farther  than  either  in  this  direction.  Many  ex 
pressions  of  this  piety  occur  in  his  writings, 

[271J 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

printed  or  imprinted,  —  for  I  have  read  most  of 
his  manuscripts,  —  and  I  have  by  me  an  unpub 
lished  fragment  on  "Gratitude,"  dated  February 
24,  1838,  a  few  months  earlier  than  he  first  ap 
peared  as  an  author,  before  his  townsmen,  at  the 
Lyceum,  in  his  twenty-first  year: — 

Gratitude  l 

As  in  his  strength,  so  in  his  weakness  does  Man's  di 
vinity  appear.  For  he  is  not  denied  the  heavenly  satis 
faction  of  beneficence;  to  him  is  given,  be  he  high  or 
low,  not  only  well  to  wish  but  well  to  do  to  his  meanest 
fellow-men:  in  this,  his  chief  prerogative,  partner  of 
God,  though  far  behind  in  it.  And  if  his  hand  be  weak, 
and  his  faint  word  is  not  enough  to  conjure  into  life  the 
immortal  deed  —  in  his  good  will  is  more  divinity.  For 
with  the  Almighty,  willing  is  doing  —  the  gracious 
deed  forth-springing  into  life  and  light  as  soon  as  willed. 
Such  is  Man's  privilege  that,  if  not  the  source,  yet  is  he 
oft  the  channel  through  which  God's  blessings  flow  on 
all  mankind.  Solely  his  is  heaven-born  Gratitude,  twin 
sister  of  Benevolence;  of  Heaven  born,  though  bred  on 
earth;  rare  ornament  that  exalts  the  lowly  mind  to  a 
level  with  its  proudest  benefactor,  oft  cancelling  the 
debt  with  coin  from  Heaven's  own  mint.  The  noble 
soul,  itself  in  turn  made  debtor,  shrinks  to  accept  so 
rich  a  recompense;  and  hence  comes  angelic  strife,  con 
tention  without  war,  —  a  spectacle  for  Heaven,  or 
rather,  Heaven  on  earth. 

1  Possibly  from  Henry  More. 
[272] 


SYMBOLISM    AND    PARADOX 

We  have  seen  how  Thoreau  composed  litera 
ture;  but  he  was  also  its  critic;  and  I  find  in  stray 
sheets  of  his  Journal  of  1843  a  specimen  of  his  criti 
cism.  He  was  reading  in  a  New  York  library,  while 
living  at  Staten  Island,  the  Elizabethan  poets, 
and  the  prose  of  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  and  others, 
and  he  wrote  this:  — 

It  is  one  great  and  rare  merit  of  the  old  tragedy  that 
it  says  something.  The  words  slide  away  very  fast,  but 
toward  some  conclusion.  It  has  to  do  with  things  and 
not  words;  and  the  reader  feels  as  if  he  were  advancing. 
It  does  not  seem  to  make  much  odds  what  the  author 
has  to  say,  at  this  distance  of  time,  if  he  only  deliver 
himself  of  it  in  a  downright  and  manly  way.  We  like 
Marlowe  because  he  is  so  plain-spoken  and  direct,  and 
does  not  waste  the  time.  .  .  .  Though  we  discover  in 
Raleigh's  verses  the  vices  of  the  courtier,  and  they  are 
not  equally  sustained,  —  as  if  his  genius  were  warped  by 
the  frivolous  society  of  the  Court,  —  he  was  capable  of 
rising  to  unusual  heights.  His  genius  seems  to  have 
been  fitted  for  short  flights  of  unmatched  sweetness  and 
vigor,  but  by  no  means  for  the  sustained  loftiness  of  the 
epic  poet.  One  who  read  his  verses  would  say  that  he 
had  not  grown  to  be  the  man  he  promised.  They  have 
occasionally  a  strength  of  character  and  heroic  tone 
rarely  expressed  or  appreciated;  powers  and  excel 
lences  so  peculiar  as  to  be  almost  unique  specimens  of 
their  kind  in  the  language.  He  anticipated  the  judg 
ment  of  posterity  with  respect  to  Spenser's  "Faerie 
Queene,"  and  by  his  sympathy  and  advice,  encouraged 

[  273  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

the  poet  to  go  on  with  his  work,  which  he  had  laid 
aside.  In  Raleigh's  own  poems,  though  insignificant  in 
number  and  length,  his  life  naturally  culminates,  and  his 
secret  aspirations  appear.  For  poetry  is  a  piece  of  very 
private  history,  which  unostentatiously  lets  us  into 
the  secret  of  a  man's  life.  Poetry  is  always  impartial 
and  unbiassed  evidence.  The  misfortune  and  incon 
gruity  of  the  man  appear  in  the  fact  that  he  was  at 
once  the  author  of  the  "Maxims  of  State,"  and  "The 
Soul's  Errand."  With  all  his  heroism  he  was  not 
heroic  enough ;  with  all  his  manliness  he  was  servile  and 
dependent,  with  all  his  aspirations  he  was  ambitious. 

But  alas!  What  is  Truth?  That  which  we  know  not. 
What  is  Beauty?  That  which  we  see  not.  What  is 
Heroism?  That  which  we  are  not. 

Donne  was  not  a  poet,  but  a  man  of  strong  sense,  — 
a  sturdy  English  thinker,  full  of  conceits  and  whimsi 
calities;  hammering  away  at  his  subject,  be  it  eulogy 
or  epitaph,  sonnet  or  satire,  with  the  patience  of  a  day- 
laborer;  without  the  least  taste,  but  with  an  occasional 
fine  distinction  and  poetic  utterance  of  a  high  order. 
He  was  rather  Doctor  Donne  than  the  poet  Donne. 
He  gropes,  for  the  most  part;  his  letters  are  perhaps 
best. 

Daniel  the  poet  does  really  sometimes  deserve  praise 
for  his  moderation;  and  you  find  him  risen  into  poetry 
before  you  know  it.  Some  strong  sense  appears  in  his 
Epistles;  but  you  have  to  remember  too  often  in  what 
age  he  wrote;  yet  Shakespeare  was  his  contemporary. 
He  strikes  us  as  a  retired  scholar,  who  has  a  small  vein 
of  poesy,  which  he  is  ambitious  to  work. 

[  274  1 


SYMBOLISM   AND    PARADOX 

Lovelace  is  what  his  name  expresses  —  of  slight 
material  to  make  a  poet's  fame.  His  goings  and 
comings  are  of  no  great  account.  His  taste  is  not 
so  much  love  of  the  good  as  fear  of  the  bad;  though 
in  one  or  two  instances  he  has  written  fearlessly  and 
memorably. 

In  contrast  with  this  delicate  discrimination, 
take  this  meditation  of  Thoreau  at  Staten  Island 
in  November,  1843,  upon  a  topic  of  which  we 
have  heard  much  and  seen  much  fulfilled  in  the 
seventy-odd  years  since.  The  man  here  cited 
was  one  of  the  founders  of  the  woodland  dem 
ocracy  of  early  Wisconsin  —  a  little  older  than 
my  original,  generous,  and  humorous  old  friend, 
Andrew  Elmore,  of  Green  Bay,  or  than  General 
Dodge  and  Alexander  Mitchell.  He  was  Moses 
Strong,  an  Eastern  man  transplanted  to  the  region 
west  of  Milwaukee.  How  Thoreau  became  ac 
quainted  with  his  name  is  unknown  —  possibly 
from  his  friend  Channing,  who  had  lived  on  a 
prairie  of  Illinois,  near  the  Wisconsin  border,  for 
a  year  or  two.  But  here  is  the  passage:  — 

American  Literature  at  the  West 

Saturday,  November  4,  1843.  We  must  look  to  the 
West  for  the  growth  of  new  literature,  manners,  archi 
tecture,  etc.  Already  there  is  more  language  there  than 
here  which  is  the  growth  of  the  soil.  Good  Greekish 

[275  ] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

words  are  there  in  abundance,  —  good  because  neces 
sary  and  expressive;  '  diggings '  for  instance.  If  you  an 
alyze  a  Greek  word  you  will  not  get  anything  simpler, 
truer,  more  poetical:  many  others  also,  which  now 
look  so  ram-slang-like  and  colloquial  when  printed, 
another  generation  will  cherish  and  affect,  as  genuine 
American  and  standard.  Read  some  Western  stump- 
speech,  and  though  it  be  untoward  and  rude  enough, 
there  will  not  fail  to  be  some  traits  of  genuine  eloquence, 
and  some  original  and  forcible  statement,  which  will 
remind  you  of  the  orators  of  antiquity.  I  am  already 
inclined  to  read  the  stump-speeches  of  the  West, 
rather  than  the  Beauties  of  our  Atlantic  orators. 

Here  is  an  extract  from  the  speech  of  a  (Wisconsin) 
man  named  Strong,  whom  the  reporter  understood  "to 
live  somewhere  over  near  the  Mississippi,  in  the  min 
ing  country.  He  had  a  pitcher  of  whiskey  brought  into 
the  court-room  and  set  on  the  table  before  him,  from 
which  he  drank  long  and  frequently."  It  was  a  speech 
in  defence  of  a  member  of  the  Legislative  Council  of 
the  Territory,  who  had  shot  a  fellow-member  in  a  dis 
pute  in  the  Council-chamber.  This  is  a  part  of  Moses 
Strong's  address  to  the  jury:  — 

"Gentlemen  of  the  Jury:  I  don't  know  what  your 
religion  is,  nor  I  don't  care.  I  hain't  got  much  myself, 
— though  Jesus  Christ  was  a  mighty  good  man.  Now, 
gentlemen,  I  am  one  of  those  kind  of  men  who  live 
pretty  fast.  I  believe  men  generally  live  over  about 
the  same  surface:  some  live  long  and  narrow,  and 
others  live  broad  and  short." 

(Adverting  to  an  old  gentleman,  one  of  the  witnesses, 

[  276  ] 


SYMBOLISM    AND   PARADOX 

he  said:)  "I  would  not  like  to  charge  him  with  perjur 
ing  himself,  because  he  and  I  were  members  of  the 
Council  together.  We  were  tolerable  good  friends, 
though  always  quarrelling.  He  was  always  on  one 
side;  he  was  just  like  the  handle  of  this  pitcher"  (tak 
ing  up  the  pitcher  and  pointing  to  the  handle).  "Here 
gentlemen,  this  was  him,  and  here"  (pointing  to  the 
nose  of  the  pitcher),  "this  was  the  estimable  Moses, 
and  these  were  our  relative  positions.  I  believe  we  never 
got  so  near  as  to  drink  a  glass  of  water  together,  —  but 
I'll  drink  his  health  now,  anyhow"  (catching  up  the 
pitcher  and  pouring  down  a  "strangler"  of  whiskey). 
"As  for  the  murdered  man,  he  is  dead;  there  is  no 
doubt  of  it:  he  is  dead!  —  dead!  —  dead  as  a  smelt; 
in  the  language  of  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  too,  he  is  a 
' gone  coon.' "  And  before  he  concluded,  he  reeled  with 
intoxication. 

The  speech  of  the  Secretary  of  State,  which  followed, 
is  said  to  have  been  "dignified,  able,  and  suited  to  the 
occasion,  —  as  was  also  the  closing  argument  for  the 
prosecution."  Perhaps  it  is  needless  to  add  that  the 
defendant  was  acquitted. 

There  was  humor  in  this  citation;  but  Tho- 
reau  could  take  a  broad  and  serious  view  of  our 
national  situation,  —  in  the  days  of  Tippecanoe 
and  Tyler  too,  when  the  country  seemed  given 
over  to  riot  and  noise  in  its  politics,  —  as  this 
poem  evinces,  sent  to  the  "Dial,"  but  never 
printed  there:  — 

[277] 


HENEY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Our  Country 

It  is  a  noble  country  where  we  dwell, 

Fit  for  a  stalwart  race  to  summer  in, 

From  Madawaska  to  Red  River  raft, 

From  Florid  Keys  to  the  Missouri  Forks 

See  what  unwearied  and  what  copious  streams 

Come  tumbling  to  the  East  and  Southern  shore, 

To  find  a  man  stand  on  their  lowland  banks: 

Behold  the  innumerous  rivers  and  the  lakes 

Where  he  may  drink  to  quench  his  summer  thirst; 

And  the  broad  rice  and  corn  fields  yonder,  where 

His  hands  may  gather  for  his  winter's  store. 

See  the  fair  reaches  of  the  northern  lakes, 
To  cool  his  summer  with  then*  inland  breeze, 
And  the  long  slumbering  Appalachian  range, 
Offering  its  slopes  to  his  unwearied  knees. 
See  what  a  long-lipped  sea  doth  clip  the  shores, 
And  noble  strands  where  navies  may  find  port: 
See  Boston,  Baltimore  and  New  York  stand 
Fair  in  the  sunshine  on  the  eastern  sea,  — 
And  yonder,  too,  the  fan*  green  prairie. 

See  the  Red  race  with  sullen  step  retreat, 
Emptying  its  graves,  striking  the  wigwam  tent, 
And  where  the  rude  camps  of  its  brethren  stand, 
Dotting  the  distant  green,  —  then*  herds  around,  — 
In  serried  ranks,  and  with  a  distant  clang, 
Their  fowl  fly  o'er,  bound  to  the  northern  lakes, 
Whose  plashing  waves  invite  their  webbed  feet. 

Such  the  fair  reach  and  prospect  of  the  land; 

The  journeying  Summer  creeps  from  south  to  north 

[278] 


SYMBOLISM   AND   PARADOX 

With  wearied  feet,  resting  in  many  a  vale. 

Its  length  doth  tire  the  seasons  to  o'ercome, 

Its  widening  breadth  doth  make  the  sea-breeze  pause 

And  spend  its  breath  against  the  mountain's  side: 

Still  serene  Summer  paints  the  southern  fields, 

While  the  stern  Winter  reigns  on  northern  hills. 

Look  nearer;  know  the  lineaments  of  each  face,  — 
Learn  the  far-travelled  race,  and  find  here  met 
The  so-long  gathering  congress  of  the  world! 
The  Af ric  race,  brought  here  to  curse  its  fate,  — 
Erin  to  bless,  —  the  patient  German  too,  — 
Th'  industrious  Swiss,  the  fickle,  sanguine  Gaul, 
And  manly  Saxon,  leading  all  the  rest. 
All  things  invite  this  Earth's  inhabitants 
To  rear  their  lives  to  an  unheard-of  height, 
And  meet  the  expectation  of  the  land: 
To  give  at  length  the  restless  race  of  men 
A  pause  in  the  long  westering  caravan. 

This  is  not  a  great  poem,  surely;  but  it  has  good 
poetical  features,  and  might  well  have  been  ad 
mitted  to  the  "Dial."  An  examination  of  the 
manuscript  shows  where  Thoreau  made  slight 
pencil  corrections ;  but  these  did  not  avail  to  make 
it  pass  the  Emersonian  tests.  Possibly  it  was 
Margaret  Fuller  who  rejected  it,  as  she  had  in 
December,  1840,  the  "Service"  essay,  concern 
ing  which  she  wrote  to  the  young  author:  — 

The  essay  is  rich  in  thoughts,  and  I  should  be  pained 
not  to  meet  it  again.  But  then  the  thoughts  seem  to 

[279] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

me  so  out  of  their  natural  order  that  I  cannot  read  it 
through  without  pain.  I  never  once  feel  myself  in  a 
stream  of  thought,  but  seem  to  hear  the  grating  of  tools 
on  the  mosaic.  It  is  true,  as  Mr.  Emerson  says,  that 
essays  not  to  be  compared  with  this  have  found  their 
way  into  the  "Dial."  But  then,  these  are  more  unas 
suming  in  their  tone,  and  have  an  air  of  quiet  good- 
breeding  which  induces  us  to  permit  their  presence. 
Yours  is  so  rugged  that  it  ought  to  be  commanding. 

What  she  said  of  it  in  December,  1840,  had 
much  truth;  and  so  had  her  remarks  on  Tho- 
reau's  genius  in  a  letter  written  some  months 
later:  — 

He  is  healthful,  rare,  of  open  eye,  ready  hand  and 
noble  scope.  He  sets  no  limits  to  his  life,  nor  to  the 
invasions  of  Nature;  he  is  not  wilfully  pragmatical, 
ascetic  or  fantastical.  But  his  thought  lies  too  de 
tached;  truth  is  seen  too  much  in  detail;  there  is  a  want 
of  fluent  sense. 

These  defects  were  soon  overcome. 

Thoreau  was  a  good  reader  of  human  nature; 
a  little  more  turned  aside  in  his  judgment  by 
whims  and  caprice  than  Emerson;  but  when  his 
eye  fell  on  his  brother  man  or  sister  woman,  he 
saw  their  true  character,  and  sometimes  revealed 
it  to  them,  for  their  astonishment,  as  Jones  Very 
did.  Among  the  Walden  manuscripts  I  found  this 

[  280  1 


SYMBOLISM   AND    PARADOX 

passage,  written  a  few  years  after  his  Staten  Is 
land  experiences:  — 

Visitors  in  Walden  Woods 

Sometimes  there  would  come  to  my  house  at  once 
half  a  dozen  railroad  repairers,  healthy  and  sturdy 
working-men,  descended  from  sound  bodies,  and  still 
transmitting  them  from  remote  days  to  more  remote. 
Some  of  them  had  got  a  rude  wisdom  withal,  and  a 
courtesy  which  I  love,  —  thanks  to  their  dear-bought 
experience.  I  met  them  so  often  in  the  woods  that  they 
began  to  look  upon  me  at  last  as  one  of  their  kin.  One, 
a  handsome  young  sailor-like  man,  says  to  me  to-day, 
— "Sir,  I  like  your  notions;  I  think  I  shall  live  so  my 
self.  Only  I  should  like  a  wilder  country,  where  there 
is  more  game.  I  have  been  among  the  Indians  near 
Appalachicola.  I  have  lived  with  them.  I  like  your 
kind  of  life.  Good-day.  I  wish  you  success  and  hap 
piness."  [This  was  evidently  one  of  those  naturally 
polite  Southern  youths,  like  the  Kentuckian  I  met  on 
the  Missouri  River  steamboat  ten  years  later.]  They 
came  in  troops  on  Sundays,  in  clean  shirts,  with 
washed  hands  and  faces,  and  fresh  twigs  in  their  hands. 
Circumstances  and  employments  affect  but  slowly  the 
finer  qualities  of  our  nature.  I  observed  in  some  of 
these  men  an  inextinguishable  and  ineradicable  re 
finement  and  delicacy  of  nature  (older  and  more  worth 
than  the  sun  and  moon)  which  are  commonly  thought 
to  adorn  the  drawing-room  only.  Sometimes  I  fan 
cied  a  genuine  magnanimity,  —  more  than  Greek  or 
Roman,  —  equal  to  the  least  occasion  of  unexplored 

[281  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

and  uncontaminated  descent.  Greater  traits  me- 
thought  I  noticed  in  the  shortest  intercourse  than  are 
recorded  of  any  of  the  worthies  —  Epaminondas, 
Socrates  or  Cato.  They  had  faces  homely,  hard  and 
seamed,  like  the  rocks;  but  human  and  wise;  embrac 
ing  Copt  and  Mussulman,  all  races  and  nations,  — 
pacha  or  Sultan,  —  Selim,  Mustapha,  or  Mahmoud  in 
disguise.  Under  some  of  the  ancient  and  wrinkled,  al 
most  forlorn  visages,  as  of  an  Indian  chieftain,  slumber 
the  world-famous  humanities  of  man.  You  can  tell  a 
nobleman's  head  among  a  thousand,  —  though  he  may 
be  shoveling  gravel  six  rods  off,  in  the  midst  of  a  gang, 
with  a  cotton  handkerchief  tied  about  it.  Such  a  one  is 
to  succeed  the  worthies  of  history. 

It  was  this  gift  of  insight  which  made  Thoreau 
and  Emerson  recognize  the  heroism  of  John 
Brown,  under  his  "rustic  exterior." 


CHAPTER  IX 

THOREAU  AS   FRIEND,   NEIGHBOR,   AND   CITIZEN 

WRITING  his  book  of  "Sonnets  and  Canzonets," 
twenty  years  after  Thoreau's  death,  Bronson 
Alcott  had  this  to  say  of  a  common  libel  upon  the 
poet-naturalist  —  that  he  was  a  recluse,  misan 
thropic  anarchist,  aiming  to  overturn  the  foun 
dations  of  human  society  and  government:  — 

"  Much  do  they  wrong  our  Henry,  wise  and  kind, 
Morose  who  name  thee,  cynical  to  men, 
Forsaking  manners  civil  and  refined 
To  build  thyself  in  Walden  woods  a  den,  — 
There  flout  society,  flatter  the  rude  hind: 
We  better  knew  thee,  loyal  citizen! 
Thou,  Friendship's  all-adventuring  pioneer, 
Civility  itself  would  civilize." 

His  friends  often  encountered  this  misconcep 
tion  of  his  true  character,  especially  after  the 
School  of  Philosophy  opened  at  Concord  in  1879, 
when  the  Hegelians  from  St.  Louis  and  its  region 
appeared  in  force,  and  must  have  all  characters 
tested  by  the  Prussian  standard,  which  has  been 
for  some  years  making  much  mischief  in  the 
world.  The  mistake  grew  partly  out  of  his  humor 
ous  way  of  expressing  himself,  and  partly  from 

[283] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

the  dulness  of  his  hearers  and  readers.  He  had  a 
mind  truly  independent,  and  in  youth  was  per 
haps  rather  too  frequent  in  declaring  his  inde 
pendence,  either  in  prose  or  verse.  For  exam 
ple: — 

Ye  princes,  keep  your  realms 

And  circumscribed  power; 
Not  wide,  as  are  my  dreams, 

Nor  rich,  as  is  this  hour. 
What  can  ye  give  which  I  have  not? 
What  can  ye  take  which  I  have  got? 

Can  ye  defend  the  dangerless? 

Can  ye  inherit  nakedness? 

What  is  your  whole  Republic  worth? 

Ye  hold  out  vulgar  lures; 
Why  will  ye  be  disparting  earth, 

When  all  of  Heaven  is  yours? 

'T  is  easier  to  treat  with  kings, 

And  please  our  country's  foes, 
Than  treat  with  Conscience  of  the  things 

Which  only  Conscience  knows. 

Then  there  was  a  lurking  humor  in  almost  all 
that  he  said  —  a  dry  wit,  often  expressed,  but 
not  always  understood.  Of  his  fidelity  in  friend 
ship,  Channing  as  usual  has  said  the  best  thing: — 

It  is  needless  to  dwell  on  the  genial  and  hospitable 
entertainer  he  always  was.  His  readers  came  many 
miles  to  see  him,  attracted  by  his  writings.  Those  who 

[284] 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

came  when  they  could  no  more  see  him,  as  strangers 
on  a  pilgrimage,  seemed  as  if  they  had  been  his  inti 
mates,  so  warm  and  cordial  was  the  sympathy  they  re 
ceived  from  his  letters.  No  whim  of  coldness,  no  ab 
sorption  of  his  time  by  public  or  private  business,  de 
prived  those  to  whom  he  belonged  of  his  kindness  and 
affection.  He  was  at  the  mercy  of  no  caprice;  of  a  firm 
will  and  uncompromising  sternness  in  his  moral  na 
ture,  he  carried  the  same  qualities  into  his  relation  with 
others,  and  gave  them  the  best  he  had  without  stint. 
He  loved  firmly,  acted  up  to  his  love,  was  a  believer 
in  it;  took  pleasure  and  satisfaction  in  abiding  by  it. 
There  was  no  affectation  or  hesitancy  in  his  dealing 
with  his  friends.  He  meant  friendship,  and  meant 
nothing  else,  and  stood  by  it  without  the  slightest 
abatement;  not  veering  as  a  weathercock  with  each 
shift  of  a  friend's  fortune;  or  like  those  who  bury  their 
early  friendships  in  order  to  gain  room  for  fresh 
corpses. 

His  quick  and  self-sacrificing  friendship  for 
John  Brown,  of  Kansas,  was  a  case  in  point.  He 
had  met  him  but  twice,  for  a  few  hours  each  time, 
but  he  had  fathomed  his  character  and  main  pur 
pose,  without  knowing  or  being  curious  about 
his  plans.  The  promptness  and  moral  courage 
with  which  he  made  himself  the  champion  of 
Brown  after  his  capture  at  Harper's  Ferry,  and 
long  before  the  popular  voice  declared  him  the 
people's  hero,  would  have  made  Thoreau  a  famous 

[  285  ] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

leader  in  times  of  revolution  had  he  ever  chosen 
that  path  to  fame.  When  the  news  from  Vir 
ginia  came,  and  the  true  nature  of  Brown  de 
veloped  itself  through  the  providential  presence 
and  uncensored  accuracy  of  the  reporter  of  the 
"New  York  Herald,"  at  the  colloquy  with  the 
magnates  of  the  Old  Dominion,  Thoreau,  already 
prepared,  as  Emerson  was,  by  what  he  had  seen 
of  the  man,  was  excited  to  an  unwonted  degree 
by  the  daily  bulletins.  He  said  of  those  thrilling 
days:  — 

If  any  one  who  has  seen  Brown  in  Concord  can  now 
pursue  any  other  train  of  thought,  I  do  not  know  what 
he  is  made  of.  If  he  gets  his  usual  allowance  of  sleep, 
I  will  warrant  him  to  fatten  easily,  under  any  circum 
stances  which  do  not  touch  his  body  or  purse.  I  put  a 
piece  of  paper  and  a  pencil  under  my  pillow,  and  when 
I  could  not  sleep,  I  wrote  in  the  dark. 

(He  had  been  in  the  habit  of  this  in  his  nightly 
rambles.) 

From  these  notes  he  made  up  his  "Plea  for 
Captain  John  Brown,"  which  he  read  to  his 
townsmen  in  the  church  vestry,  where  Wendell 
Phillips  had  confronted  the  conservatism  of 
Concord  many  years  before,  supported  by  the 
younger  Thoreaus,  one  of  whom  reported  Phil 
lips  in  the  "Liberator."  On  this  new  occasion 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

Henry  summoned  his  village  audience  himself, 
without  waiting  to  be  invited.  He  then  hastened 
away  to  Worcester,  to  read  the  speech  to  his 
friends,  Blake,  Higginson,  and  Brown,  where  it 
was  reported;  finally,  and  all  within  a  fortnight 
from  the  capture  of  Brown,  he  gave  it  to  Theo 
dore  Parker's  great  audience  at  the  Fraternity 
Lectures  in  Boston;  and  it  went  over  the  country 
in  newspaper  columns.  What  was  first  note 
worthy  in  this  impassioned  address  was  the  com 
plete  absence  of  any  apology  for  the  hero;  quite 
the  contrary  was  his  tone:  — 

For  once  we  are  lifted  out  of  the  dust  of  politics  into 
the  region  of  truth  and  manhood.  No  man  in  America 
has  ever  stood  up  so  persistently  and  effectively  for  the 
dignity  of  human  nature,  —  knowing  himself  for  a 
man,  and  the  equal  of  any  and  all  governments.  He 
could  not  have  been  tried  by  a  jury  of  his  peers,  be 
cause  his  peers  did  not  exist.  When  a  man  stands  up. 
serenely  against  the  condemnation  and  vengeance  of 
mankind,  the  spectacle  is  a  sublime  one,  and  we  be 
come  criminals  in  comparison.  Do  yourselves  the 
honor  to  recognize  him;  he  neediTnone  of  your  respect. 
I  rejoice  that  I  live  in  this  age,  —  that  I  am  his  con 
temporary.  When  were  the  good  and  the  brave  ever 
in  a  majority?  Would  you  have  had  him  wait  till  that 
time  came,  till  you  and  I  came  over  to  him? 

Ethan  Allen  and  Stark,  to  whom  he  may  in  some 
respects  be  compared,  were  rangers  in  a  lower  and  less 

[287] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

important  field.  They  could  bravely  face  their  coun 
try's  foes,  but  he  had  the  courage  to  face  his  country 
herself  when  she  was  in  the  wrong.  A  Western  writer 
says,  to  account  for  his  escape  from  so  many  perils, 
that  he  was  "concealed  under  a  rural  exterior,"  as  if, 
in  that  prairie  land,  a  hero  should,  by  good  rights,  wear 
a  citizen's  dress  only. 

Later  in  the  year  that  saw  the  emancipation 
of  the  slaves  begun,  —  and  in  three  years  it  was 
accomplished,  —  Thoreau  wrote  other  pages  on 
Brown  in  his  Journal,  and  they  were  read  by 
Brown's  grave  in  the  Adirondac  forest  the  next 
Fourth  of  July.  In  them  he  said:  — 

What  avail  all  your  scholarly  accomplishments  and 
learning,  compared  with  wisdom  and  manhood  ?  To 
omit  his  other  behavior,  see  what  a  work  this  com 
paratively  unread  and  unlettered  man  wrote  within 
six  weeks.  He  wrote  in  prison,  not  a  History  of  the 
World,  like  Raleigh,  but  an  American  book  which  I 
think  will  live  longer  than  that.  I  do  not  know  of 
such  words,  uttered  under  such  circumstances,  and  so 
copiously  withal,  in  Roman  or  English  or  any  his 
tory.  The  art  of  composition  is  as  simple  as  the  dis 
charge  of  a  bullet  from  a  rifle,  and  its  masterpieces 
imply  an  infinitely  greater  force  behind  them.  This 
unlettered  man's  speaking  and  writing  are  standard 
English.  Some  words  and  phrases  deemed  vulgarisms 
and  Americanisms  before,  he  has  made  standard 
American. 

[288] 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

Of  all  the  men  who  were  said  to  be  my  contempora 
ries,  it  seemed  to  me  that  John  Brown  was  the  only  one 
who  had  not  died.  I  meet  him  at  every  turn.  He  is  more 
alive  than  ever  he  was.  He  has  earned  immortality. 
He  is  not  confined  to  North  Elba  nor  to  Kansas.  He  is 
no  longer  working  in  secret.  He  works  in  public,  and  in 
the  clearest  light  that  shines  on  this  land. 

Brave  words!  of  which  Thoreau  did  not  live 
to  see  even  the  near  fulfilment;  for  he  died  before 
the  tide  of  defeat  in  the  Civil  War  had  turned; 
and  Lincoln,  the  disciple  of  John  Brown,  had  not 
issued  his  first  Emancipation  Decree.  But  it 
followed  the  foray  in  Virginia  as  naturally  as 
consequent  follows  antecedent;  and  Thoreau  im 
plicitly  foretold  it. 

A  minor  incident  followed  closely  upon  the 
memorial  meeting  for  Brown  at  Concord,  in 
which  Thoreau  took  an  active  part  —  finding  in 
Andrew  Marvell  a  verse  none  had  noted  before, 
which  fitted  the  occasion:  — 

"  When  the  sword  glitters  o'er  the  judge's  head, 
And  fear  has  coward  churchmen  silenced, 
*T  is  then  the  Poet's  time;  't  is  then  he  draws, 
And  singly  fights  forsaken  Virtue's  cause. 
He,  when  the  wheel  of  empire  whirleth  back, 
And  though  the  world's  disjointed  axle  crack, 
Sings  still  of  ancient  laws  and  better  times; 
Seeks  suffering  Good,  arraigns  successful  crimes." 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

The  incident  is  this,  and  it  well  illustrates  the 
friendliness  and  neighborliness  of  Thoreau.  I 
had  received  a  visit  from  an  enthusiastic  but 
feeble  youth,  a  grandson  of  Francis  Jackson,  the 
friend  and  partisan  of  Garrison  and  Phillips  (as 
I  was),  who  had  somehow  heard  of  Brown's  secret 
plans  and  wished  to  join  him  and  carry  him  a 
sum  of  money,  of  which  Brown  always  stood  in 
need.  I  advised  him  to  send  the  money,  but  not 
to  go  himself;  for  I  doubted  if  his  weak  frame  and 
impulsive  spirit  could  carry  him  through  so  hard 
a  campaign  as  Brown  had  entered  on.  Young 
Meriam  went,  however,  and  by  a  sort  of  mira 
cle,  and  by  the  care  taken  of  him  by  Owen 
Brown,  he  escaped  through  Pennsylvania  and 
Ohio  to  Canada.  But  in  early  December  he  had 
found  his  way  back  to  Boston,  and  was  consulting 
Phillips  and  his  other  friends,  urging  a  new  foray 
on  slavery,  in  which  he  was  wildly  ready  to  take 
part.  A  large  reward  was  offered  for  his  capture, 
and  there  were  plenty  of  scoundrels  in  Boston 
who  would  delight  to  earn  it  by  waylaying  him. 
He  was  at  the  house  of  his  physician,  near  Mrs. 
Phillips's  home  on  Harrison  Avenue,  and  Dr. 
Thayer  joined  me  in  the  advice  I  gave  him  to 
return,  that  very  night,  to  Canada,  before  the 
rogues  got  on  his  trail.  He  promised  to  do  this, 

[  290  ] 


«  f; 

FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

and  I  returned  to  Concord.  But  in  his  half-in 
sane  state,  he  missed  the  train  that  would  have 
taken  him  to  Montreal  the  next  forenoon  and 
got  into  a  local  train  that  only  ran  to  Concord. 
He  therefore  came  to  my  house,  and  in  my  absence 
(making  a  call  in  one  of  the  two  Thoreau  houses), 
my  sister  gave  him  his  supper  and  sent  him  to 
bed  to  keep  him  out  of  sight.  On  my  return, 
before  eight  o'clock,  my  sister  met  me  at  the  door 
and  told  me  that  Meriam  was  my  guest,  but  had 
been  told  that  he  could  not  see  me  that  night.  I 
said:  "Nor  in  the  morning  either,  for,  if  he  hap 
pens  to  be  arrested,  I  shall  not  be  a  witness  against 
him.  He  must  go  early  in  the  morning  to  South 
Acton,  to  take  the  first  train  for  Canada,  and  I 
must  get  him  transportation." 

I  at  once  went  to  Mr.  Emerson's  house,  and 
said  to  him,  "I  would  like  to  borrow  your  mare, 
Dolly,  early  to-morrow  morning  for  a  drive  to 
Acton;  and  if  you  will  favor  me  so  far  I  will  ask 
Mr.  Thoreau  to  call  for  it."  He  replied,  "Cer 
tainly,  and  James  Burke  shall  harness  her  into 
the  carriage  at  the  hour  named."  I  then  called 
on  Henry  Thoreau,  to  whom  I  imparted  the  mat 
ter  more  fully.  "  There  is  a  friend  at  my  house 
who  is  to  take  the  first  train  for  Canada  at  South 
Acton  to-morrow,  without  fail.  Mr.  Emerson 

[291  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

will  lend  me  Dolly  and  the  carriage;  will  you 
oblige  me  by  calling  for  it,  driving  it  to  my  door, 
and  taking  in  my  friend?  His  name  is  Lockwood, 
and  if  he  thinks  he  has  any  other  name,  you  must 
not  believe  him ;  he  has  some  queer  fancies."  "  Cer 
tainly,"  said  Thoreau;  he  would  be  there  and 
drive  the  carriage  to  and  from  South  Acton.  I 
then  returned  home,  went  to  bed,  and  stayed  in 
my  chamber  while  my  sister  gave  Mr.  Lockwood 
his  breakfast,  and  had  him  in  readiness  when 
Thoreau,  who  was  a  good  driver,  appeared  and 
took  his  passenger,  placing  him  on  the  back  seat, 
to  be  less  visible  should  they  meet  any  inquisi 
tive  persons  on  the  rather  lonely  drive  of  four 
miles.  In  an  hour  or  two  Thoreau  came  back, 
reporting  that  Mr.  Lockwood  caught  the  train, 
and  was  well  started  for  Montreal.  Neither  the 
driver  nor  the  driven  knew  who  the  other  really 
was;  but  no  questions  were  asked  until  two  years 
later.  Then,  in  his  last  illness,  Thoreau  told  me 
some  incidents  of  the  drive.  Meriam  was  in  an 
excited  state  of  mind;  and  though  he  wished  to 
go  to  Canada,  and  had  promised  to  go,  he  could 
not  keep  to  his  purpose.  He  insisted  he  must  see 
Mr.  Emerson  before  leaving  Concord;  he  had  im 
portant  plans  to  lay  before  him;  besides,  he  wished 
to  consult  him  on  some  moral  and  religious 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

doubts  he  had.  Thoreau  listened  with  grave 
politeness,  and  drove  the  faster  toward  Acton. 
Meriam  grew  more  positive  and  suspicious.  "I 
never  saw  Mr.  Emerson;  perhaps  may  never  have 
another  chance:  I  must  go  there  now.  Ah!  per 
haps  you  are  Mr.  Emerson.  You  look  like  one 
of  his  portraits."  "No,"  said  the  imperturbable 
charioteer  —  urging  Dolly  to  a  quicker  gait. 
Thereupon  the  impetuous  youth  cried,  "Well,  I 
am  going  back  to  Concord";  and  flung  himself 
from  the  carriage. 

How  Thoreau  got  him  in  again  he  never  told 
me;  but  I  always  suspected  a  judicious  use  of 
force,  such  as  I  should  have  used  on  the  feeble 
youth,  for  his  own  good;  together  with  that 
earnest,  persuasive  speech,  natural  to  the  phi 
losopher;  for  then  they  fell  into  discussing  some 
moral  issue,  and  there  was  no  more  insurrection 
till  they  reached  the  Acton  station,  and  Thoreau 
saw  his  man  on  board  the  arriving  train,  unsus 
pected  by  the  few  observers  on  that  mild  winter 
morning.  Driving  leisurely  back  through  the 
township  and  village,  he  returned  Dolly  and  the 
wagon  to  James  Burke,  and  called  at  my  door, 
as  he  walked  home  to  his  own  late  breakfast, 
to  tell  me  what  had  happened.  The  subject  was 
then  dismissed,  and  no  explanation  was  asked 

[  293  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

or  given  until  more  than  two  years  later,  after  his 
return  from  Minnesota,  when,  in  one  of  my  calls 
on  the  invalid,  he  asked  me  who  my  fugitive 
friend  was.  Meriam  being  then  out  of  danger, 
except  as  a  soldier  in  the  Union  army  (for  the 
Civil  War  was  well  begun),  I  told  Thoreau  that 
it  was  the  grandson  of  his  mother's  old  friend 
Francis  Jackson  whom  he  had  removed  from 
the  risk  of  arrest;  and  hi  turn  he  gave  me,  with 
some  amusement,  the  incidents  just  related.  Not 
till  then  did  he  communicate  to  his  mother  and 
sister  the  errand  upon  which  he  had  gone  that 
winter  morning,  to  guard  an  unknown  and  not 
very  attractive  person  from  risks  to  which  he 
was  exposing  himself.  My  reason  for  not  seeing 
Meriam  was,  of  course,  to  have  no  testimony 
against  him  to  give  in  case  of  his  capture,  which 
seemed  not  unlikely  from  his  thoughtlessness. 
I  never  saw  him  afterward. 

I  gave  shelter  to  another  of  the  Harper's  Ferry 
fugitives  the  next  spring  —  C.  P.  Tidd,  then 
passing  by  the  name  of  Plumer,  who  had  ven 
tured  to  Concord  to  see  his  old  captain's  daugh 
ter,  Anne  Brown,  a  pupil  of  mine  at  the  time. 
In  the  excitement  after  my  own  arrest  and  re 
lease,  —  the  latter  following  my  rescue  from  the 
kidnappers  by  a  writ  of  habeas  corpus,  and  my 

[  294  1 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

discharge  by  Chief  Justice  Shaw,  in  April,  1860, 
—  Thoreau,  with  other  friends,  was  active  in 
my  sister's  behalf ,  during  my  brief  absences;  and 
indeed  he  was  apt  at  all  neighborly  service  for  his 
friends,  or  for  the  poor,  to  whom  the  Thoreaus 
were  ever  kind. 

Emerson  said  of  Thoreau  at  his  funeral  in 
May,  1862,  in  the  parish  church,  where  it  was 
held,  like  Hawthorne's,  Emerson's,  and  Chan- 
ning's,  afterwards,  —  rather  against  the  wish  of 
his  mother  and  sister:  — 

A  truth-speaker  he,  capable  of  the  most  strict  and 
deep  conversation;  a  physician  to  the  wounds  of  any 
soul:  a  friend,  knowing  not  only  the  secret  of  friend 
ship,  but  almost  worshiped  by  those  few  persons  who 
knew  the  deep  value  of  his  mind  and  great  heart.  His 
inexorable  demand  on  all  for  exact  truth  gave  an  aus 
terity  which  made  this  willing  hermit  more  solitary 
even  than  he  wished. 

In  saying  this,  Emerson  may  have  been  think 
ing  of  that  short,  painful  period,  about  five  years 
before  his  death,  when  Thoreau  felt  himself  es 
tranged  from  Emerson,  so  long  his  dearest  friend; 
and  gave  expression  to  his  sorrow  in  his  Diary  for 
February,  1857.  In  accounting  for  it,  he  used  this 
striking  language,  —  applicable  to  Emerson  in  cer 
tain  moods,  and  with  certain  qualifications :  — 

r  295 1 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

I  perceive  that  some  persons  are  enveloped  and  con 
fined  by  a  certain  crust  of  manners,  which,  though  it 
may  sometimes  be  a  fair  and  transparent  enamel,  yet 
only  repels  and  saddens  the  beholder,  since  by  its 
rigidity  it  seems  to  repress  all  further  expansion.  They 
are  viewed  as  at  a  distance,  or  like  an  insect '  under  a 
tumbler.1  This  is  to  stand  upon  your  dignity.  I  say  in 
my  thought  to  my  neighbor,  who  was  once  my  friend, 
"It  is  of  no  use  to  speak  the  truth  to  you,  you  will  not 
hear  it.  What,  then,  shall  I  say  to  you?" 

Why  this  doubleness,  these  compliments?  They  are 
the  worst  of  lies.  A  lie  is  not  worse  between  traders  than 
a  compliment  between  friends.  ...  I  have  not  yet 
known  a  friendship  to  cease,  I  think.  I  fear  I  have  ex 
perienced  its  decaying.  Morning,  noon,  and  night,  I 
suffer  a  physical  pain,  an  aching  of  the  breast  which 
unfits  me  for  my  tasks.  It  is  perhaps  most  intense  at 
evening. 

This  last  word  is  pathetic;  it  was  at  evening 
in  those  later  years  that  he  saw  most  of  Emer 
son.  The  estrangement  passed  away,  not  without 
leaving  some  trace  in  the  more  sensitive  heart  of 
Thoreau. 

I  once  sought  to  explain  this  episode  by  the 
inscrutable  working  of  heredity,  in  these  two 
friends  of  such  diverse  ancestry.  To  his  inheri 
tance  Emerson  owed  his  matchless  propriety 

1  Charming,  in  his  Life  of  Thoreau,  quoted  this,  evidently  know 
ing  its  cause. 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

and  decorum  —  a  sense  of  what  was  fitting  in 
all  the  occasions  of  life,  and  a  consideration  for 
the  tastes  and  feelings  of  others,  which  made  him 
unique  among  reformers.  Thoreau  inherited  a 
trenchant  individualism,  scanty  of  respect  for  the 
merely  conventional,  and  little  disposed  to  make 
those  concessions,  in  small  matters,  which  the 
daily  intercourse  of  life  requires.  At  heart  pro 
foundly  unselfish  and  courteous,  he  was  on  the 
surface  brusque  and  pugnacious;  and  at  times, 
in  spite  of  his  distinction,  a  little  too  plebeian  in 
his  bearing;  while  Emerson  was  the  gentle  pa 
trician.  Whether  strictly  true  or  not,  this  may 
serve  as  a  clue  to  the  incident. 

Among  some  notes  of  Emerson's  table-talk 
during  my  acquaintance  both  with  him  and 
Thoreau,  I  find  this  said  of  his  friend,  which  may 
give  the  other  side  of  the  story :  — 

My  children  think  Henry  rather  snubs  them.  He 
said  the  Linncea  borealis  did  not  flower  in  Concord,  till 
E.  carried  it  to  him,  gathered  near  one  of  our  paths  in 
the  Park.  Why  is  he  never  frank?  That  was  an  excel 
lent  saying  of  Elizabeth  Hoar's  —  "I  love  Henry,  but 
I  can  never  like  him."  What  is  so  cheap  as  politeness? 
Never  had  I  the  least  social  pleasure  with  him,  though 
often  the  best  conversation;  in  which  he  goes  along 
accumulating  one  thing  upon  another  so  lavishly  — 
when  he  is  not  pugnacious. 

[2971 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

And  in  matters  practical  he  makes  it  worth  my  while 
to  pay  him  surveyor's  wages  for  doing  other  things 
[the  occasion  being  his  planting  a  pine  wood  on  Emer 
son's  knoll  near  Walden,  where  Thoreau's  beanfield 
had  been  in  the  Walden  days].  He  is  so  thoughtful;  has 
such  a  conscience  about  it,  and  does  so  much  more 
than  he  bargained  to  do.  When  he  undertakes  any 
thing  you  may  be  sure  the  thing  will  be  done :  he  has 
the  common  sense  of  Shakespeare. 

The  early  relations  with  Hawthorne  which 
Thoreau  held  during  the  first  residence  of  Haw 
thorne  in  Concord,  and  with  Channing  at  his 
first  arrival  there  in  the  spring  of  1843,  have  al 
ready  been  mentioned.  With  Hawthorne  those 
relations  were  never  very  intimate,  but  there  was 
much  mutual  respect  one  for  the  other.  The  skat 
ing  trio  of  Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and  Thoreau, 
in  the  winter  of  1843-44,  has  been  well  described, 
—  but  perhaps  with  too  evident  though  natural 
partiality.  Mrs.  Hawthorne  wrote:  — 

One  afternoon  Mr.  Emerson  and  Mr.  Thoreau  went 
skating  down  the  river  from  the  Old  Manse  with  Mr. 
Hawthorne.  Henry  Thoreau  is  an  experienced  skater, 
and  was  figuring  dithyrambic  dances  and  Bacchic 
leaps  on  the  ice  —  very  remarkable,  but  very  ugly, 
methought.  Next  him  followed  Mr.  Hawthorne,  who, 
wrapped  in  his  cloak,  moved  like  a  self-impelled  Gre 
cian  statue,  stately  and  grave.  Mr.  Emerson  closed  the 

[  298  ] 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

line  —  evidently  too  weary  to  hold  himself  erect,  pitch 
ing  head-foremost,  half  lying  on  the  air.  He  came  into 
the  Manse  to  rest  himself;  and  said  to  me  that  Haw 
thorne  was  a  tiger,  a  bear,  a  lion,  —  in  short  a  satyr, 
and  there  was  no  tiring  him  out;  he  might  be  the  death 
of  a  man  like  himself.  And  then,  turning  upon  me  that 
kindling  smile  for  which  he  is  so  memorable,  he  added, 
"Mr.  Hawthorne  is  such  an  Ajax,  —  who  can  cope 
with  him?" 

I  have  occasionally  skated  with  Emerson  on 
Walden,  and  found  him  a  good,  but  quiet  skater 
—  not  too  energetic,  as  Thoreau  and  Channing 
were,  being  younger  men;  and  probably  less  grace 
ful  than  Hawthorne,  who  had  manifest  advan 
tages  of  face  and  figure.  But  all  the  Concord  au 
thors,  including  Alcott,  were  equal  to  most  physi 
cal  exigencies,  and,  with  the  exception  of  Emer 
son,  rather  fond  than  otherwise  of  manual  labor. 
Alcott  and  Thoreau  were  good  mechanics,  and 
could  build  houses  if  needful.  Thoreau,  to  be  sure, 
criticised  Alcott's  picturesque  summer-house  — 
built  for  Emerson  while  he  was  lecturing  in  Eng 
land  in  the  autumn  of  1847.  Thoreau  had  then 
left  his  Walden  cabin  to  take  charge  of  the 
Emerson  household  during  its  owner's  absence; 
and  could  not  avoid  witnessing  the  slow  progress 
of  the  "arbor,"  as  Thoreau  styled  it.  Channing 

[  299  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

was  also  looking  after  his  own  household  at  the 
Ponkawtassett  height  of  land,  a  mile  or  two  to 
the  westward;  but  his  daily  walks  brought  him 
often  past  the  Emerson  house,  and  he,  too,  had 
his  jest  at  the  Alcott  edifice.  A  little  before  the 
middle  of  November,  1847,  it  seems  to  have  had 
its  roof  put  on,  and  the  jests  began  to  wound 
the  sensibilities  of  the  philosopher.  Thoreau  and 
Channing  both  wrote  to  London  by  the  same  mail, 
and  Thoreau  said :  — 

Alcott  has  heard  that  I  laughed,  and  so  set  the  people 
laughing  at  his  arbor;  though  I  never  laughed  louder 
than  when  I  was  on  the  ridgepole.  But  now  I  have  not 
laughed  for  a  long  time,  it  is  so  serious.  He  is  very 
grave  to  look  at.  Not  knowing  all  this,  I  strove  in 
nocently  enough,  the  other  day,  to  engage  his  atten 
tion  to  my  mathematics. 

"Did  you  ever  study  geometry,  the  relation  of 
straight  lines  to  curves?  the  transition  from  finite  to 
the  infinite?  Fine  things  about  it  in  Newton  and 
Leibnitz."  But  he  would  have  none  of  it;  men  of 
taste  preferred  the  natural  curve.  Ah,  he  is  a  crooked 
stick  himself. 

Channing  in  his  letter  dwells  on  the  small  size 
of  the  summer-house,  in  contrast  with  the  time 
and  pains  expended  on  its  construction;  it  is  a 
Cathedral  of  Cologne,  even  a  St.  Peter's  edifice 
at  Rome;  and,  like  Thoreau,  he  hints  that  it  will 

[  300  1 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

not  stand  for  many  years.  It  was  not  framed  from 
timbers,  but  built  of  a  set  of  branches,  young 
trees,  and  natural  curves,  picked  up  in  the  woods, 
and  held  together  by  nails  and  spikes.  But  it 
lasted  many  years,  sat  for  its  picture  to  several 
artists,  and  I  have  often  sat  in  it,  sheltered  from 
the  sun,  and  even  ascended  to  its  second  story,  for 
it  was  safe  and  strong.  It  fulfilled  its  purpose, 
which  was  to  be  ornamental,  and  to  give  useful 
employment  to  Mr.  Alcott,  who  then  had  many 
unused  powers.  These  three  or  four  friends  were 
so  friendly  that  they  could  laugh  at  one  another 
in  the  intervals  of  their  serious  thought,  and  no 
bitter  drop  be  left  in  the  cup  of  their  mirth. 

A  friend  who  came  into  the  Concord  circle  late, 
attaching  himself  specially  to  Thoreau,  was  the 
English  scholar,  colonizer,  and  country  gentle 
man  Thomas  Cholmondeley ,  who  happened  upon 
Thoreau  by  accident,  as  it  were,  and  was  so 
much  affected  by  him  as  to  live  for  a  time  with 
him,  visit  him  again  from  the  ends  of  the  earth, 
present  him  with  a  small  library  of  rare  books, 
and  correspond  with  him  for  a  time.  He  was  the 
grandson  of  a  Shropshire  squire,  the  son  of  a 
clergyman  at  Hodnet,  the  nephew  of  Bishop 
Heber;  an  Oxford  graduate,  a  sheep-farmer  in 
New  Zealand  for  some  years,  a  volunteer  for  the 

[  301  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Crimean  war,  without  coming  into  action;  and 
finally  the  heir  of  an  old  property,  and  the  hus 
band  of  a  lovely  bride.  He  died  when  the  sub 
stance  of  his  life  was  just  beginning.  He  had  been 
twenty  years  preparing  for  it,  and  was  carried  to 
the  grave  before  he  had  fairly  entered  on  it.  He 
had  many  friends  in  America,  more  in  England, 
and  seems  to  have  had  no  enemies.  His  letters  to 
Thoreau,  and  a  few  of  Thoreau's  to  him  have  been 
printed;  here  a  few  facts  and  particulars  can  be 
put  together  which  will  connect  his  memory  with 
the  more  permanent  fame  of  Thoreau. 

In  one  of  his  regular  letters  to  his  chief  corre 
spondent  in  mature  life,  Harrison  Blake  of  Wor 
cester,  Thoreau  casually  mentioned  (October  1, 
1854),  "A  young  Englishman,  Mr.  Cholmondeley, 
is  just  now  waiting  for  me  to  take  a  walk  with 
him."  It  was  the  first  of  many  walks,  in  course 
of  which  he  became  almost  as  much  interested  in 
his  late-found  friend,  as  Cholmondeley  had  been 
interested  in  him.  His  new  friend  had  urged  him 
to  visit  England,  as  the  young  student  who  after 
wards  became  a  Catholic  priest,  Father  Hecker, 
had  done  ten  years  before;  and  had  Thoreau  lived 
to  be  fifty,  and  his  friend  continued  in  life  and 
in  England,  they  would  doubtless  have  met  and 
rambled  there.  But  the  Concord  friend  died  be- 

[302] 


THOMAS  CHOLMONDELEY 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

fore  he  reached  forty -five,  and  Thomas  Cholmon- 
deley  died  at  Florence  on  his  wedding  journey, 
in  1864,  when  he  had  just  reached  forty.  He  had 
gone  out  to  New  Zealand  in  185 1,1  with  a  party 
of  religious  colonists  (for  he  had  been  religiously 
educated,  and  two  of  his  brothers  were  clergymen), 
and  on  returning  to  England  a  year  later,  he  pre 
pared  a  volume  on  the  island,  which  he  called 
"Ultima  Thule";  and  then,  with  a  few  letters  of 
introduction,  he  came  to  the  United  States  in  the 
summer  of  1854,  to  see  what  sort  of  a  common 
wealth  we  had  established  here.  He  found  that 
Thoreau,  whom  he  so  much  admired,  had  been 
protesting  against  our  national  polity  by  refusing 
to  pay  taxes,  making  emancipation  speeches,  and 
other  conduct  which  must  have  startled  the  Ox 
ford  graduate  not  a  little.  As  time  went  on,  be 
fore  he  came  over  again  (partly  to  visit  Tho 
reau,  and  partly  to  see  the  West  Indies),  he  found 
that  his  friend  had  been  upholding  John  Brown 
of  Osawatomie  in  his  warfare  against  slavery  in 
Kansas,  and  was  soon  to  be  his  champion  in  the 
desperate  foray  at  Harper's  Ferry.  All  this  did 
not  mitigate  in  the  least  his  admiration  for  Tho 
reau;  indeed,  he  gave  hospitality  to  Edwin  Mor 
ton,  who  had  been  fully  cognizant  of  Brown's 

1  In  the  Charlotte  Jane,  a  ship  of  Lord  Lyttelton. 

i 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

general  plan  for  freeing  the  slaves,  and  was  then 
in  England  to  avoid  giving  testimony  against 
persons  suspected  of  being  Brown's  supporters. 
Morton  had  been  with  me  in  college,  had  with  me 
made  the  acquaintance  of  Cholmondeley,  and  had 
met  Thoreau  in  Concord,  where,  after  his  return 
from  England  in  1860,  he  had  frequently  visited 
me.  In  his  company  Thoreau  had  been  my  guest 
at  a  dinner-party,  and  there  we  heard  him  sing 
his  one  song  of  those  later  years,  "Tom  Bow 
line,"  in  memory  of  his  lost  brother  John.  Con 
sequently  Morton  had  been  an  agreeable  guest 
to  our  English  friend,  who  had  himself  been  here 
again. 

Late  in  November,  1858,  he  had  written  to 
Concord  from  Montreal  that  he  was  in  Canada, 
and  on  his  way  to  the  West  Indies;  that  he  would 
soon  come  to  Concord,  and  urged  Thoreau  to  go 
with  him  to  the  tropics.  In  his  father's  last  illness, 
this  the  faithful  son  could  not  do;  but  he  detained 
Cholmondeley  a  few  days  in  town,  and  took  him 
on  a  trip  to  New  Bedford,  to  show  him  a  whaling 
town,  as  New  Bedford  then  was,  and  introduce 
him  to  Daniel  Ricketson,  his  intimate  friend  and 
Channing's.  To  Blake  he  gave  this  estimate  of 
his  English  friend,  "He  is  rather  more  demonstra 
tive  than  before,  and,  on  the  whole,  what  would  be 

[  304  ] 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

called  'a  good  fellow,'  —  a  man  of  principle,  and 
quite  reliable;  but  very  peculiar." 

Mr.  Ricketson  gave  this  brief  analysis  of  his 
visitor,  on  that  eventful  day:  — 

He  is  a  tall,  spare  man,  thirty-five  years  of  age,  of 
fair  and  fresh  complexion,  blue  eyes,  light  brown  and 
fine  hair,  nose  small  and  Roman,  beard  light  and  worn 
full,  with  a  mustache.  A  man  of  fine  culture  and  re 
finement  of  manners,  educated  at  Oriel  College,  Ox 
ford,  of  an  old  Cheshire  family  by  his  father,  a  clergy 
man. 

From  his  first  visit  to  America  he  returned  to 
England  in  January,  1855,  and  at  once  busied 
himself  in  collecting  a  library  of  Oriental  books 
for  Thoreau,  which  he  sent  over  in  the  autumn. 
They  arrived,  November  30, 1855,  and  I  saw  them 
soon  after,  in  a  new  case  which  Thoreau  had  just 
made  for  them,  out  of  driftwood  that  he  brought 
home  from  his  afternoon  voyages  on  the  river.  He 
wrote  to  Blake:  "They  are  in  English,  French, 
Latin,  Greek,  and  Sanscrit.  One  is  splendidly 
bound  and  illustrated."  Several  of  them,  and 
their  cases  are  now  mine. 

More  exactly  Thoreau  described  these  books  as 
"a  royal  gift  in  the  shape  of  twenty-one  distinct 
works  (one  in  nine  volumes  —  forty-four  volumes 
in  all)  almost  exclusively  relating  to  Hindoo  liter- 

[  305  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

ature,  and  scarcely  one  of  them  to  be  bought  in 
America.  I  am  familiar  with  many  of  them,"  he 
adds,  "and  know  how  to  prize  them."  To  this 
his  friend  replied:  "I  had  indeed  studied  your 
character  closely  and  knew  what  you  would  like. 
Besides,  I  had,  even  from  our  first  acquaintance, 
a  previous  memory  of  you,  like  the  vision  of  a 
landscape  a  man  has  seen,  he  cannot  tell  where." 
Trusting  to  this  previous  acquaintance,  Chol- 
mondeley,  writing  from  Rome  in  December,  1856, 
proceeded  to  give  his  friend  some  good  advice. 

Counsels  of  a  Wise  Friend 

You  are  not  living  altogether  as  I  could  wish.  You 
ought  to  have  society.  A  college,  a  conventual  life  is 
not  for  you.  You  should  be  the  member  of  some  so 
ciety  not  yet  formed.  You  want  it  greatly,  and  with 
out  this  you  will  be  liable  to  moulder  away  as  you  get 
older.  Forgive  my  English  plainness  of  speech.  Your 
love  for  and  intimate  acquaintance  with  Nature  is 
ancillary  to  some  affection  which  you  have  not  yet  dis 
covered.  The  great  Kant  never  dined  alone.  Once,  when 
there  was  danger  of  an  empty  dinner-table,  he  sent 
his  valet  out,  bidding  him  catch  the  first  man  he  could 
find,  and  bring  him  in.  So  necessary  was  the  tonic,  the 
effervescing  cup  of  conversation,  to  his  deeper  labors. 

Laughter,  chatter,  politics,  and  even  the  prose  of 
ordinary  talk  is  better  than  nothing.  Are  there  no 
clubs  in  Boston?  The  lonely  man  is  a  diseased  man,  I 

[306J 


-FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,  CITIZEN 

greatly  fear.  See  how  carefully  Mr.  Emerson  avoids  it! 
and  yet  who  dwells,  in  all  essentials  more  religiously 
free  than  he?  Now  I  would  have  you  one  of  a  well- 
knit  society  or  guild,  from  which  rays  of  thought  and 
activity  might  emanate,  and  penetrate  every  corner  of 
your  country.  By  such  a  course  you  would  not  lose 
Nature.  Take  up  every  man  as  you  take  up  a  leaf,  and 
look  at  him  attentively.  This  would  be  easy  for  you, 
who  have  such  powers  of  observation,  and  of  attracting 
the  juices  of  all  you  meet  to  yourself.  Even  I,  who  have 
no  such  power,  somehow  find  acquaintances,  —  and 
nobody  knows  what  I  get  from  those  about  me.  They 
give  me  all  they  have,  and  never  suspect  it.  What 
treasures  I  gleaned  at  Concord!  I  wish  I  lived  near 
you,  and  that  you  could  somehow  originate  some  such 
society  as  I  have  in  my  head. 

What  you  are  engaged  in  I  suspect  to  be  Meditations 
on  the  Higher  Laws,  as  they  show  themselves  in  Com 
mon  Things. 

This,  if  well  weaved,  may  become  a  great  work;  but 
I  fear  this  kind  of  study  may  become  too  desultory. 
Try  a  history.  How  if  you  could  write^the  sweet,  beau 
tiful  history  of  Massachusetts?  Positively,  there  is  an 
immense  field  open.  Or  take  Concord,  —  still  better, 
perhaps.  Take  the  spirit  of  Izaak  Walton,  with  a  spice 
of  Gilbert  White!  It  would  be  a  great  labor,  and  a  grand 
achievement,  —  one  for  which  you  are  singularly  quali 
fied.  .  .  . "  He  is  beginning  to  preach  now,"  you  will  say. 
Well,  then,  let  us  have  a  turn  at  politics  and  litera 
ture.  I  was  certain,  from  the  first,  that  Buchanan 
would  be  President,  because  I  felt  sure  the  Middle 

[  307  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

States  are  not  with  the  North.  Nor  is  the  North  itself 
yet  in  earnest.  You  are  fond  of  humanity,  —  but  you 
like  commerce  and  a  great  heap,  and  a  big  name  bet 
ter.  Besides,  your  principle  and  bond  of  union  ap 
pears  to  be  most  negative;  you  do  not  like  slavery.  Is 
there  any  positive  root  of  strength  in  the  North?  Where 
and  what?  You  have  indeed  in  New  England  the  genius 
of  liberty,  and  for  construction  and  management;  you 
have  a  wonderful  aplomb,  and  are  never  off  your  feet. 
But  when  I  think  of  your  meagreness  of  invention,  your 
absurd  whims  and  degraded  fancies  of  spirit-rapping, 
etc.,  and  the  unseemly  low  ebb  of  your  ordinary  litera 
ture,  I  tremble.  You  have  one  Phoenix  —  the  greatest 
man  since  Shakespeare,  I  believe;  but  where  is  the  rest 
of  the  choir?  It  is  the  same  as  in  England  —  all  is 
fragmentary,  poor  and  draggletail.  I  have  seen  some 
fragments  by  a  certain  W.  Whitman,  who  appears  to 
be  a  strong  man.  But  why  write  fragments?  it  is  not 
modest.  There  is  a  man  we  both  of  us  respect  and 
admire,  —  Carlyle,  —  but  has  he  not  damaged  his 
hand  beyond  cure?  He  drives  a  cart,  and  strikes 
against  every  stone  he  sees.  He  has  no  "  perception  "  of 
the  highest  kind.  A  good  preacher,  —  but,  after  all,  a 
creaking,  bumping,  tortuous,  involved,  and  visionary 
author. 

This  was  good  advice  and  sound  opinion,  with 
most  of  which  Thoreau  agreed,  but  what  could 
be  done?  The  time  was  not  yet  ripe;  and  when  the 
hour  had  come,  the  men  were  gone.  Thoreau,  in 
return  for  his  gift,  sent  him  American  books  — 

[  308  ] 


FRIEND,  NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

among  them  Whitman's  "Leaves  of  Grass,"  which 
came  out  in  the  summer  of  1855.  His  friend  re 
sponded  from  London  (May  26,  1857) :  — 

Walt  Whitman's  poems  have  only  been  heard  of  in 
England  to  be  laughed  at  and  voted  offensive.  Here 
are  Leaves  indeed!  which  I  can  no  more  understand 
than  the  Book  of  Enoch,  or  the  inedited  poems  of 
Daniel.  I  cannot  believe  that  such  a  man  lives,  unless 
I  actually  touch  him.  He  is  further  ahead  of  me  in 
yonder  West,  than  Buddha  is  behind  me  in  the  Orient. 
I  find  reality  and  beauty,  mixed  with  not  a  little  vio 
lence  and  coarseness,  —  both  of  which  are  to  me  effem 
inate.  I  am  amused  at  his  views  of  sexual  energy, 
which,  however,  are  absurdly  false.  The  man  appears 
to  me  not  to  know  how  to  behave  himself.  I  find  the 
gentleman  altogether  left  out  of  the  book!  Altogether 
these  Leaves  completely  puzzle  me.  Is  there  actually 
such  a  man  as  Whitman?  Has  any  one  seen  or  handled 
him?  His  is  a  tongue  "not  understanded "  of  the  Eng 
lish  people.  It  is  the  first  book  I  have  ever  seen  which 
I  should  call  a  "new  book,"  —  and  thus  I  would  sum 
up  the  impression  it  makes  upon  me. 

At  his  visit  to  Concord  the  next  year  (Novem 
ber,  1858)  he  learned  by  conversation  with  Tho- 
reau,  Emerson,  Alcott,  and  perhaps  others  who 
had  seen  Whitman,  that  he  was  a  real  person,  not 
without  great  qualities;  though  repulsive  to  the 
great  mass  of  his  compatriots,  especially  to  wo 
men;  who,  at  first,  in  Concord,  refused  to  associ- 

309 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

ate  with  him.  Whitman's  Concord  friends  wished 
to  invite  him  to  their  houses;  but  in  the  spring  of 
1860,  when  he  was  in  Boston,  printing  a  new  edi 
tion  of  his  "Leaves,"  neither  Sophia  Thoreau  nor 
Mrs.  Alcott  nor,  as  I  am  told,  Mrs.  Emerson, 
would  allow  him  to  be  invited.  So  he  never  came 
till  twenty-one  years  later,  when  he  visited  me  for 
a  few  days,  and  dined  at  the  Emersons'  —  having 
met  them  the  night  before,  along  with  Mr.  Alcott 
and  Louisa,  at  my  house  by  the  river.  Thoreau 
and  his  sister  and  Mrs.  Alcott  had  died,  or  they 
also  would  have  been  present;  for  Whitman's 
course  in  the  Civil  War,  and  a  greater  familiarity 
with  his  books,  had  mainly  removed  the  original 
impression.  That  impression  I  was  bound  to  dis 
regard;  for  I  had  first  seen  him  at  the  trial  of  my 
case  in  the  Boston  Court  House  in  April,  1860,  — 
sitting  near  the  entrance  in  a  green  jacket,  pre 
pared,  as  I  heard  afterward,  to  join  with  others  in 
rescuing  me  from  the  kidnappers  if  the  court 
(which  I  did  not  expect)  should  decide  against 
me.  Thoreau  was  not  then  present;  but  he  would 
have  joined  in  the  same  effort,  to  the  extent  of  his 
power,  and  have  classed  it  under  his  title  of  "Civil 
Disobedience."  At  Christmas,  1859,  when  our 
friend  Morton  dined  at  Hodnet  in  the  Rectory, 
with  Rev.  Zachary  Macaulay,  who  had  married 

[310] 


FRIEND,   NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

the  widow  of  his  predecessor,  Cholmondeley's 
mother,  and  with  that  lady  herself,  he  heard  from 
Cholmondeley  how  the  Hodnet  Rectory  had  re 
ceived  the  readings  from  Whitman  in  1856:  "I 
began  to  read  a  good  passage,  but  did  not  get  far 
when  Mr.  Macaulay  said,  'I'll  not  listen  to  that 
stuff,  —  if  you  go  on  with  it,  I  '11  throw  it  into  the 
fire.' '  This,  of  course,  put  a  stop  to  any  further 
acquaintance  in  that  house  with  "Walt  Whitman, 
a  Kosmos."  But  Miss  Mary  Cholmondeley,  the 
novelist,  a  niece  of  Thomas,  probably  ventured 
to  peruse  him  in  after  years.  We  have  lived  to 
see  him  much  commended  in  England  since,  and 
verses  written  in  his  manner  by  several  reputable 
Englishmen.  Cholmondeley  himself  must  have 
modified  his  opinion  a  little,  after  hearing  what 
Thoreau  had  to  say  in  Whitman's  favor  in  1859. 
Long  intervals  passed  between  letters  of  these 
transatlantic  correspondents,  and  the  letters  writ 
ten  by  Thoreau  have  not  all  been  recovered  from 
the  accumulations  at  Condover  Hall,  the  last 
residence  of  Thomas  Owen,  by  which  name  he 
inherited  that  Elizabethan  house,  afterward  the 
residence  of  his  brother  Reginald  Cholmondeley. 
His  last  letter  to  Thoreau  was  dated  April  23, 
1861,  and  was  answered  by  me  before  forwarding 
it  to  Henry  in  Minnesota.  Two  years  later,  almost 

[311] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

to  a  day  (April  20,  1863)  Mr.  Owen,  then  newly 
married  to  Miss  Victoria  Cotes,  died  at  Florence 
of  a  malignant  fever,  and  was  carried  back  to 
Shropshire  for  burial  in  Condover  churchyard. 
His  last  letter  contained  this  passage:  — 

The  last  I  heard  from  you  all  was  from  Edwin  Mor 
ton,  who  was  in  England  about  a  year  ago;  and  I  hope 
that  he  has  got  over  his  difficulties,  and  is  in  his  own 
country  again.  I  think  he  has  seen  rather  more  of  Eng 
lish  country  life  than  most  Yankee  tourists;  and  ap 
peared  to  find  it  curious,  though  I  fear  he  was  dulled  by 
our  ways.  He  was  too  full  of  ceremony  and  compli 
ments  and  bows,  which  is  a  mistake  here,  though  very 
well  in  Spain.  But  he  made  a  splendid  speech  at  a  vol 
unteer  supper;  and  indeed,  the  very  best,  some  said, 
ever  heard  in  this  part  of  the  country  [Shrewsbury]. 
Give  my  affectionate  regards  to  your  father,  mother 
and  sister;  and  to  Channing,  Sanborn,  Ricketson, 
Blake;  and  Morton,  Alcott  and  Parker.  A  thought 
arises  in  my  mind,  —  whether  I  may  not  be  enumerat 
ing  some  dead  men.  Perhaps  T.  Parker  is  dead? 

He  certainly  was,  and  it  was  strange  that  Owen 
did  not  hear  of  it.  John  Thoreau,  Sr.,  had  died  too, 
a  few  weeks  after  Cholmondeley  left  Concord. 
Speaking  of  the  wars  then  threatened  in  Europe 
he  wrote:  — 

These  rumors  of  war  make  me  wish  that  we  had  got 
done  with  the  brutal  stupidity  of  war  altogether;  and  I 

[312] 


FRIEND,    NEIGHBOR,   CITIZEN 

believe,  Thoreau,  that  the  human  race  will  at  last  get 
rid  of  it,  though  perhaps  not  in  a  creditable  way.  But 
such  powers  will  be  brought  to  bear,  that  it  will  become 
monstrous,  even  to  the  French. 

After  fifty-five  years,  we  seem  farther  from  that 
goal  than  ever.  Thoreau  at  once  wrote  to  me  from 
Red  Wing  in  Minnesota,  at  the  end  of  the  longest 
letter  I  ever  got  from  him,  "I  am  glad  to  hear  that 
you  have  written  to  Cholmondeley,  as  it  relieves 
me  of  some  responsibility." 

Of  the  persons  named  in  this  friendly  message, 
I  am  now  the  only  survivor.  Theodore  Parker  had 
died  at  Florence  in  May,  1860,  and  is  buried  there 
under  a  headstone  modelled  by  the  sculptor  Story. 
Alcott  lived  until  1888,  and,  with  Thoreau  and 
Channing  (who  died  in  1901)  is  buried  in  Con 
cord.  Morton,  for  whom  some  concern  is  ex 
pressed,  returned  to  Plymouth,  but  was  so  ill  of 
fever  during  the  Civil  War  that  he  had  never 
health  enough  afterward  to  warrant  his  serving  in 
the  army,  but  remained  a  semi-invalid  till  his 
death  at  Morges  on  Lake  Geneva  in  1900,  where 
he  had  spent  many  years.  All  these  and  many 
more  were  attached  friends  and  admirers  of  Henry 
Thoreau,  and  had  watched  with  confidence  his 
rise  in  reputation  ever  since  the  publication  of  his 
"Walden"  in  1854. 


CHAPTER  X 

THOREAU  AS   MAN   OF   LETTERS   AND   OF  AFFAIRS 

ALTHOUGH  Thoreau  regarded  authorship  as  his 
special  function  in  life,  prepared  himself  for  that 
industriously  and  skilfully,  and  now  has  nearly 
thirty  volumes  standing  against  his  name  in  the 
lists  of  libraries,  he  did  not  expect  literature  to 
support  him  pecuniarily.  For  that  he  had  other 
resources,  which,  in  fact,  never  failed  him,  until 
illness  deprived  him  of  the  power  of  self-support 
except  with  the  pen.  As  schoolmaster,  private 
tutor,  pencil-maker,  gardener,  lecturer,  land-sur 
veyor,  editor,  and  general  utility  man,  he  was 
always  careful  to  support  himself,  and  was  neither 
dependant  on  his  family  nor  on  any  patron  for  his 
daily  bread.  He  arranged  a  plan  of  life  for  him 
self,1  usually  with  the  cooperation  of  his  family 

1  This  has  always  been  known  to  those  who  knew  the  facts  of  his 
early  life,  though  often  ignored  or  misrepresented  by  persons  who 
undertook  to  write  about  him  without  learning  the  true  state  of 
the  case.  He  was  in  truth  the  "superior  man"  of  whom  he  had 
occasion  to  write  so  often,  —  that  is,  he  was  a  sample  of  that  small 
class,  throughout  the  world,  of  whom  Homer  in  the  Odyssey  speaks 
when  relating  how  Hermes  and  Calypso  recognized  each  other:  — 

"The  gods  are  to  each  other  not  unknown, 
Though  far  apart  they  dwell." 

[314] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

and  his  immediate  friends,  and  was  most  industri 
ous  in  carrying  it  forward. 

He  was  sometimes  looked  down  upon  by  resi 
dents  of  his  township  as  an  idle  person;  there  were 
a  few  such  within  its  thirty  square  miles  —  but  he 
was  not  one  of  those.  I  have  lived  there,  off  and 
on,  for  more  than  sixty  years,  and  when  not  re 
siding  there  have  kept  note  of  the  transactions  of 
the  town  in  all  its  industries,  and  I  have  never 
seen  or  heard  of  a  more  industrious  resident.  His 
tasks  began  before  the  earliest  haymaker  or  wood- 
chopper  went  to  his  work,  and  were  continued  after 
the  latest  evening  seamstress  had  set  her  last 
stitch.  He  had  many  occupations,  and  was  expert 
in  all.  He  risked  no  large  investments,  which 
might  put  the  small  family  estate  to  hazard; 
for  after  his  brother  John's  lamented  death  in 
1842,  he  was  the  main  hope  of  the  family.  His  in 
vestment  in  his  first  volume,  the  "Week,"  was  the 
largest  that  he  made,  I  suppose;  and  for  that  he 
paid  by  the  toil  of  his  hands  in  pencil-making,  or 
by  kindred  labors.  His  "Walden" — the  only 
other  book  he  published  —  paid  for  itself,  and  has 
always  continued  to  sell  well.  For  his  eighteen 
lectures  at  the  Lyceum  in  Concord,  he  charged 
and  received  nothing;  it  was  the  custom  of  the 
town  to  render  that  service  gratis.  He  went  much 

[315] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

further,  and  was  inclined  to  boast  that  he,  as 
Curator  of  the  Lyceum,  had  provided  his  towns 
men,  for  one  hundred  dollars,  with  a  remarkable 
course  of  winter  lectures  by  the  best  lecturers 
attainable.  It  was  during  the  winter  of  1843-44, 
when  the  young  citizen  was  approaching  his  twenty- 
seventh  year;  and  this  is  his  account  of  it:  — 

How  much  might  be  done  for  Concord  with  $100 !  I 
myself  have  once  provided  a  select  course  of  twenty- 
five  lectures  for  a  winter,  together  with  rent,  fuel,  and 
lights,  with  that  sum;  which  was  no  inconsiderable 
benefit  to  every  inhabitant.  With  $1000  I  could  pur 
chase  for  Concord  a  more  complete  and  select  library 
(in  my  opinion)  than  exists  in  the  State,  outside  of 
Cambridge  and  Boston;  and  perhaps  a  more  available 
one  than  any. 

This  he  did  as  "Curator"  of  the  Lyceum,  an 
institution  now  nearly  ninety  years  old,  in  which 
he  was  for  ten  years  very  active.  He  received 
from  the  citizens  in  that  winter,  a  year  and  a  hah6 
before  he  went  to  live  by  Walden  Pond,  $109; 
of  that  he  left  the  nine  dollars  in  the  treasury  as 
a  nest-egg  for  the  next  winter,  and  for  the  rest  he 
did  procure  excellent  lectures  in  the  vestry  of  the 
First  Parish  Church,  from  Emerson,  Theodore 
Parker,  Horace  Greeley,  George  Bancroft,  James 
Freeman  Clarke,  Henry  Giles,  Dr.  E.  H.  Chapin 

[316] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

(then  a  popular  orator  preaching  at  Charlestown), 
and  enough  others,  including  himself,  to  bring 
the  number  of  lectures  up  to  twenty-five.  The 
highest  price  paid  by  him  was  ten  dollars  each  to 
Mr.  Bancroft  and  Mr.  Giles;  to  Dr.  Chapin  eight 
dollars,  to  Parker  three  dollars,  and  to  Emerson, 
who  lectured  three  times,  —  nothing.  It  was  eti 
quette  to  give  your  lecture,  if  you  had  the  honor 
to  live  in  the  town.  Wendell  Phillips  was  another 
of  this  Spartan  band,  and  Thoreau  gave  more 
than  one  lecture  himself. 

For  all  the  needs  of  Concord  it  was  convenient 
to  have  a  Greek  scholar,  a  land-surveyor,  an  ex 
pert  in  fish  and  birds,  in  soils  and  insects,  in  floods 
and  storms,  to  whom  to  make  appeal  in  case  of 
need.  Thoreau  practised  surveying  for  more  than 
ten  years,  and  left  a  valuable  set  of  maps  of  the 
farms  he  surveyed;  he  laid  out  the  shorter  road  to 
Bedford,  over  which  the  trolley  car  now  trundles; 
and.  he  did  extensive  land-surveying  in  other 
places;  for  example,  at  Marcus  Spring's  large  es 
tate  in  Perth  Amboy,  New  Jersey,  where  he  spent 
a  week  in  the  autumn  of  1856,  with  an  occasional 
visit  to  New  York  and  Brooklyn,  to  call  on  his 
old  friend  Greeley  or  his  new  acquaintance  Walt 
Whitman,  whose  "Leaves  of  Grass"  had  inter 
ested  him. 

[317] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

His  ventures  in  writing  for  the  magazines  and 
in  editing  the  "Dial"  were  instructive,  but  not 
profitable  pecuniarily.  From  the  "Dial"  he  got 
nothing  but  the  labor  and  the  experience;  though 
his  papers  and  verses  there  first  made  him  known 
and  esteemed  as  an  author.  From  the  "Boston 
Miscellany,"  the  "  Democratic  Review,"  from 
Griswold  and  Sartain  and  the  Philadelphian  mag- 
azinists  to  whom  Greeley  introduced  him,  he  got 
payment  after  long  delays;  from  the  "New  York 
Tribune"  he  received  occasionally  prompt  and 
liberal  payment.  "Putnam's  Monthly"  and  the 
"Atlantic"  began  with  him,  but  insisted  on  alter 
ing  his  essays,  which  he  did  not  allow;  and  he  with 
drew  his  manuscripts,  certain  to  find  a  place  for 
them  ultimately.  He  carefully  preserved  most  of 
them,  and  they  have  been  printed  since  his  death 
—  often  being  purchased  for  large  prices.  One 
such  came  under  my  notice  so  peculiarly  that  the 
story  may  here  be  given. 

About  the  time,  hi  1904,  when  I  was  called  upon 
to  examine  the  three  drafts  of  the  manuscript  of 
Thoreau's  "Raleigh,"  Mr.  John  P.  Woodbury,  a 
diligent  reader  and  collector  of  the  printed  writ 
ings  of  Thoreau,  showed  me  a  letter-sheet  of  four 
pages,  of  which  the  fourth  was  partly  blank,  de 
siring  to  know  if  that  was  in  Henry's  handwriting. 

[318] 


MAN   OF   LETTERS 

I  assured  him  it  was,  and  that,  so  far  as  I  knew, 
it  had  never  been  printed  —  in  this  respect  like 
the  "  Raleigh,"  which  had  only  been  read  as  a  lec 
ture  at  the  Concord  Lyceum,  and  was  in  prepara 
tion  for  a  place  in  Emerson's  "  Dial."  This  shorter 
essay  was  on  "Conversation"  and  was  evidently, 
from  the  handwriting  and  the  puns,  of  the  earlier 
period  to  which  "The  Service,"  long  in  my  posses 
sion,  belonged.  Had  not  the  Journal  in  which  it 
was  originally  entered  been  destroyed,  it  might 
have  been  discovered  in  its  original  entries  there. 

Having  answered  Mr.  Woodbury's  questions, 
I  then  said:  "May  I  ask  you  a  question?  Where 
did  you  find  this,  and  what  did  it  cost  you?"  He 
said,  "I  bought  it  of  your  friend  Mr.  Goodspeed 
in  Park  Street;  he  asked  me  fifty  dollars,  and  I 
paid  him  forty  dollars."  As  the  weight  of  the  let 
ter-sheet  did  not  exceed  a  quarter-ounce,  and 
forty  dollars  represents  two  ounces  of  gold,  my 
friend  had  paid  for  this  fragment  eight  times  its 
weight  in  gold.  Relatively  to  other  essays  of 
Thoreau  it  is  inferior,  and  would  be  so  regarded 
by  his  lovers.  Portions  of  it  have  appeared  in 
other  connections. 

In  writing  about  "Conversation,"  even  at  an 
early  period  in  his  authorship,  Thoreau  was  deal 
ing  with  a  familiar  subject,  with  which  he  was 

[319] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

every  day  at  home  brought  face  to  face.  Mrs. 
Thoreau,  his  mother,  was,  next  to  Madam  Hoar, 
the  mother  of  the  Judge  and  the  Senator,  the  most 
talkative  person  in  Concord  in  my  time  —  a  very 
good  talker,  too,  if  there  was  time  to  listen.  Tho 
reau  always  found  time.  Often  have  I  sat  at  the 
family  dinner-table  engaged  in  talk  with  the  son, 
as  we  sat  on  opposite  sides  of  the  board,  facing 
each  other,  with  the  silent  father  between  us  at 
the  head  of  the  table,  which,  as  the  room  was  fur 
nished,  was  the  east  end.  Mrs.  Thoreau,  who 
helped  to  the  puddings  at  the  west  end,  catching 
some  word  in  our  conversation  which  interested 
her,  would  take  up  that  theme  and  go  on  with  it; 
often  relating  things  to  the  credit  of  her  son  or 
other  members  of  her  family.  Henry  would  sit 
silent  and  attentive,  during  the  long  interruption; 
then,  as  the  last  period  closed,  he  would  bow 
slightly  to  his  mother,  and  resume  our  dialogue 
exactly  where  it  had  been  stayed. 

Satirical  disquisitions  on  human  frailties  or 
vices  make  no  small  part  of  Thoreau's  six  volumes, 
authentically  published  or  republished  in  various 
parts  of  the  globe  since  his  death.  This  satire  or 
moral  censure  is  also  largely  represented  in  the 
fourteen  volumes  of  the  Journals  printed  in  Bos 
ton.  It  was  such  passages,  or  the  accurate  reports 

[  320  ] 


MAN    OF    LETTERS 

by  Thoreau  of  conversations  on  Cape  Cod,  as  he 
and  Channing  walked  its  beaches  and  lodged  in 
its  cabins,  which  at  first  gave  the  residents  there 
a  prejudice  against  the  author  as  his  chapters 
came  out  in  "Putnam's  Magazine."  But  now,  in 
contrast  with  such  censure,  take  a  few  passages 
from  the  lost  Journals,  which  deal  with  what  is 
usually  thought  to  be  his  best  hold  on  literature 

—  the  poetic  prose  describing  aspects  of  outward 
Nature,  with  which  he  was  so  intimately  convers 
ant. 

Autumn  and  Winter  Scenes1 

Summer  passes  into  autumn  in  some  unimaginable 
epoch  and  point  of  time,  like  the  turning  of  a  leaf.  It  is 
pleasant  to  hear  once  more  the  crackling  flight  of  grass 
hoppers  amid  the  stubble.  It  is  pleasant,  when  sum 
mer  is  drawing  to  a  close,  to  hear  the  cricket  piping  a 
Niebelungen  Lied  in  the  grass.  The  feathered  race  are 
perhaps  the  truest  heralds  of  the  season,  since  they  ap 
preciate  a  thousand  delicate  changes  in  the  atmosphere 
(which  is  their  own  element)  of  which  man  cannot  be 
aware.  The  occasional  and  transient  notes  of  such  birds 
as  migrate  early,  heard  in  midsummer  or  later,  are 
among  the  earliest  indications  of  the  advancing  year, 

—  plaintively  recalling  the  Spring.   The  clear  whistle 
of  the  oriole  is  occasionally  heard  among  the  elms  at 
this  time,  as  if  striving  to  reawaken  the  love-season; 

1  Journals  of  1842. 
[321  ] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

or  as  if,  in  the  long  interval  since  the  spring,  it  had 
but  paused  a  moment  to  secure  its  prey.  It  har 
monizes  with  the  aftermath  springing  under  our 
feet. 

The  faint,  flitting  note  of  the  goldfinch  marks  the 
turning-point  of  the  year,  and  is  heard  in  the  gardens 
by  the  middle  of  August;  as  if  this  little  harbinger  of 
the  Fall  were  prompting  Nature  to  make  haste.  Its 
lisping,  peeping  note,  so  incessant  and  universal  that 
it  is  hardly  distinguished  more  than  the  creak  of  the 
crickets,  is  one  of  Nature's  ground-tones,  and  is  asso 
ciated  with  the  rustling  of  leaves,  and  the  swift  lapse  of 
time.  The  lark,  too,  sometimes  sings  again  down  in  the 
meadow,  as  in  the  spring;  and  the  robin  peeps,  and  the 
bluebirds,  old  and  young,  revisit  their  boxes  and  hol 
low  trees,  as  if  they  would  fain  repeat  the  summer, 
without  the  intervention  of  winter. 

Dense  flocks  of  bobolinks,  russet  and  rustling,  like 
seeds  of  the  meadow  grass  floating  on  the  wind,  or 
as  if  they  might  be  ripe  grain  thrashed  out  by  the  gale, 
rise  before  us  in  our  walk.  Each  tuft  gives  up  its  bird. 
The  purple  finch,  our  American  linnet,  is  seen  early  in 
October  moving  south  in  straggling  flocks,  and  alight 
ing  on  the  apple  trees;  reminding  us  of  the  pine  and 
spruce,  cedar  and  juniper,  on  whose  berries  it  feeds. 
In  its  plumage  are  the  crimson  hues  of  October  even 
ings;  as  if  it  had  caught  and  preserved  some  of  their 
beams.  Many  a  serene  evening  lies  snugly  packed 
under  its  wing.  Then,  one  after  another,  these  little 
passengers  wing  their  way  seasonably  to  the  haunts  of 
summer,  with  each  a  passing  warning  to  man;  — 

[332] 


MAN    OF    LETTERS 

Until  at  length  the  north  winds  blow, 
And,  beating  high  mid  ice  and  snow, 
The  sturdy  goose  brings  up  the  rear,  — 
Leaving  behind  the  cold,  cold  year. 

Silently  we  unlatch  the  door,  letting  the  drift  fall 
inward,  and  step  forth  like  knights  encased  in  steel,  to 
sport  with  the  cutting  air.  Still  through  the  drifts  I  see 
the  farmer's  early  candle,  —  like  a  paled  star,  —  emit 
ting  a  lonely  beam  from  the  cottage  indoors,  as,  one  by 
one  the  sluggish  smokes  begin  to  ascend  from  the 
chimneys  of  the  farm-houses,  midst  the  trees.  Thus 
from  each  domestic  altar  does  incense  go  up  each  morn 
ing  to  the  heavens.  Once  the  stars  lose  some  of  their 
sparkle,  and  a  deep-blue  mist  skirts  the  eastern  hori 
zon,  a  lurid  and  brazen  light  foretells  the  approaching 
day.  You  hear  the  sound  of  woodchopping  at  the 
farmer's  door,  the  baying  of  the  housedog,  and  the 
distant  clarion  of  cocks.  The  frosty  air  seems  to  con 
vey,  only  and  with  new  distinctness,  the  finer  particles 
of  sound  to  our  ears.  It  comes  clear  and  round  like  a 
bell,  as  if  there  were  fewer  impediments  than  in  the 
green  atmosphere  of  summer,  to  make  it  faint  and 
ragged.  And  besides,  all  Nature  is  tight-drawn  and 
sonorous,  like  seasoned  wood. 

Sounds  now  come  to  our  ears  from  a  greater  distance 
in  the  horizon  than  in  the  summer.  For  then  Nature  is 
never  silent,  and  the  chirp  of  crickets  is  incessant;  but 
now  the  farthest  and  faintest  sound  takes  possession 
of  the  vacuum.  Even  the  barking  of  dogs  and  lowing 
of  cattle  is  melodious.  The  jingling  of  the  ice  on  the 
trees  is  sweet  and  liquid.  I  have  heard  a  sweeter  music 

[  323  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

in  some  lone  dale,  where  flowed  a  rill  released  by  the 
noonday  sun  from  its  own  frosty  fetters,  while  the 
icicles  were  melting  upon  the  apple  trees,  and  the  ever 
present  chic-a-dee  and  nuthatch  flitted  about. 

To  this  winter  picture  should  be  added  —  for 
it  cannot  be  too  often  quoted  —  the  lines  which 
expand  this  thought  of  the  domestic  altar,  lighted 
each  morning  in  homage  to  the  beneficent  deities, 
and  which  adorn  a  picturesque  page  in  "Wai- 
den":- 

When  the  villagers  were  lighting  their  fires  beyond 
the  horizon,  I  too  gave  notice  to  the  various  wild  in 
habitants  of  Walden  vale,  by  a  smoky  streamer  from 
my  chimney,  that  I  was  awake.  — 

Light-winged  Smoke,  Icarian  bird, 
Melting  thy  pinions  in  thy  upward  flight, 
Lark  without  song,  and  messenger  of  dawn, 
Circling  above  the  hamlets  as  thy  nest; 
Or  else,  departing  dream,  and  shadowy  form 
Of  midnight  vision,  gathering  up  thy  skirts; 
By  night  star-veiling,  and  by  day 
Darkening  the  light  and  blotting  out  the  sun; 
Go  thou  my  incense  upward  from  this  hearth, 
And  ask  the  gods  to  pardon  this  clear  flame. 

It  was  of  this  epigram  that  Emerson  said, 
"His  classic  poem  on  'Smoke'  suggests  Simonides, 
but  is  better  than  any  poem  of  Simonides." 
Better  than  any  extant  epigram  of  Simonides, 
perhaps;  but  the  quality  which  in  that  poet  gave 
him  his  fame  for  capacity,  would  forbid  ranking 

[324  ] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

Thoreau,  with  such  fitful,  unequal  talent,  beside 
the  minstrel  who  wrote  the  epitaph  for  the  Spar 
tans  at  Thermopylae. 

Long  after  Thoreau's  death,  and  some  years 
after  he  had  published  his  volume  "Thoreau 
the  Poet-Naturalist,"  by  which  Channing  fas 
tened  on  his  friend  the  epithet  that  best  describes 
him,  Ellery  Channing,  then  living  with  me,  be 
gan  one  evening  to  talk  about  his  dearest  Henry, 
of  whom  he  could  but  seldom  bring  himself  to 
speak.  Presently  he  came  to  the  topic  of  the  fam 
ily  industry  (pencil-making  at  first,  and  finally 
preparing  fine  plumbago  for  the  electrotypers), 
about  which  he  had  known  a  dozen  years  before 
I  did;  having  resided  in  Concord  after  April,  1843, 
and  having  been  from  the  first  intimate  with 
Emerson,  Hawthorne,  and  Thoreau.  It  would 
be  hard  to  say  with  which  he  was  the  most 
friendly,  though  in  a  different  way  with  each. 
He  said :  — 

This  plumbago  industry  gave  the  Thoreaus  con 
trol  of  a  good  mine  in  Canada,  and  they  ground  it  in 
a  mill  of  their  own  on  the  Fort  Pond  Brook  in  Acton. 
It  was  carried  on  by  a  process  which  Henry's  father  in 
vented;  there  was  some  secret  about  it,  and  they  kept 
persons  away  from  the  Acton  mill,  where  the  graphite 
was  ground  and  mixed.  All  that  was  done  in  the  home 
shop,  attached  to  the  house  on  the  Main  Street,  was 

[325  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

to  pack  and  box  the  article  for  transportation,  after 
pencil-making  ceased  (about  1850).  Henry  managed 
the  business  during  his  father's  last  illness  in  1859,  and 
at  his  death  in  February,  soon  after  Thomas  Chol- 
mondeley's  second  visit  to  Concord.1 

He  never  gave  up  pencil-making  because  he  had 
once  made  a  perfect  pencil  (as  Emerson  declared)  for 
he  never  did  make  a  perfect  pencil,  nor  say  that  he 
had.  And  he  made  and  sold  pencils  long  after  the  time 
when  Mr.  Emerson  places  that  romance. 

Land-surveying  next  became  Henry's  principal  way 
of  earning  money  for  himself  and  his  family;  and  it  was 
industriously  followed,  in  good  weather  or  bad.  All  the 
household  were  industrious  and  frugal;  Mrs.  Thoreau 
was  a  good  manager,  who  often  had  boarders,  like  Rowse 
the  engraver,  and  Cholmondeley,  and  some  of  your 
students.  Helen  had  been  a  teacher,  and  so  was  Sophia, 
was  she  not? 

1  After  this  business  had  been  transferred  by  Sophia  Thoreau, 
who  carried  it  on  for  some  years  after  her  brother's  death,  I  learned 
from  the  brothers  Warren  and  Marshall  Miles  how  much  they 
netted  from  it.  This  appeared  to  have  been  between  $1500  and 
$1800  a  year.  Probably  the  Thoreaus  earned  less  —  say  from  $1000 
to  $1500;  but  that  sum,  before  the  Civil  War,  would  have  gone  far 
in  support  of  a  frugal  Concord  household.  As  already  said,  the 
first  American  John  Thoreau  had  left  to  his  family  in  1801  about 
$25,000;  but  the  care  and  breeding  of  his  eight  children  consumed 
so  much  of  it  that  the  younger  children  never  inherited  much  of 
this  estate  except  the  two  houses  in  Boston  and  Concord,  and  the 
land  adjacent.  In  one  house,  on  the  Village  Square  in  Concord, 
they  lived  as  a  family;  the  other  they  leased  and  mortgaged  from 
time  to  time,  for  many  years.  At  the  death  of  Sophia  in  1876,  and 
of  her  aunt  Maria  five  years  later,  their  united  property  was  just 
about  what  the  ancestor  had  bequeathed  eighty  years  before. 

[  326  ] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

Henry  was  very  strict  in  money  matters.  He  wrote 
something,  as  your  book  shows,  for  "  Putnam's  Maga 
zine,"  as  he  had  for  "Graham's,"  and  the  "Boston 
Miscellany,"  edited  by  Nathan  Hale,  the  brother  of 
Edward  and  Charles  Hale;  and  when  he  did  not  get 
prompt  payment,  he  was  much  offended.  He  always 
insisted  on  being  paid  for  the  work  he  had  done. 

[Mrs.  Sanborn.]  That  does  not  seem  in  keeping  with 
his  character.  I  thought  he  despised  money,  and  did 
not  work  for  that. 

[Channing.]  It  was  just  what  he  did  work  for;  he  in 
sisted  on  payment  for  everything  he  did,  —  land- 
surveying  or  whatever.  Nobody  could  be  stricter  than 
he  in  requiring  money  when  he  worked  for  money. 

Channing  is  also  my  authority  for  most  of  the 
statements  that  follow,  in  regard  to  matters  that 
passed  under  his  own  eye :  — 

After  Henry's  return  from  Staten  Island  in  Novem 
ber,  1843,  he  entered  his  father's  shop  for  a  time,  and 
made  pencils  there  in  1844.  The  shop  was  then  at  the 
end  of  a  long  out-building  near  the  Parkman  house; 
where  the  Library  and  Art-Gallery  were  to  stand.  It  was 
not  thought  the  proper  thing  to  enter  it  or  be  too  curious 
about  it.  The  same  was  true  of  the  large  pencil-shop 
attached  to  the  Thoreau-Alcott  house  in  which  Henry 
and  his  father  and  mother  all  died.  That  building  was 
brought  there  in  1850,  from  the  "Texas"  house,  which 
Henry  and  his  father  had  built  in  1844,  and  where  the 
family  lived  for  five  or  six  years.  The  shop  was  built 
out  of  the  timbers  and  boards  of  the  Irish  cabins  of  the 

[327] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

railroad  builders  on  the  Fitchburg  line,  when  working 
through  the  "Deep  Cut"  of  which  Henry  had  so  much 
to  say  in  his  Journals,  and  in  "  Walden."  After  the  road 
was  opened,  the  cabins  were  sold  at  auction  by  Sam  Sta 
ples,  the  village  auctioneer  and  sheriff;  the  materials 
were  good  and  cheap.  For  the  Texas  house  Henry  dug 
and  stoned  the  cellar  with  his  own  skilful  hands,  as  he 
did  afterwards  for  his  hut  by  the  Walden  Cove.  It  stood 
on  a  back  street  south  of  the  new  railroad,  and  rather 
out  of  the  way  —  hence  playfully  called  k<  Texas." 

The  family  left  this  hand-made  home  in  Au 
gust,  1850,  for  the  larger  house  on  the  Main 
Street,  and  this  was  about  the  time  when  Chan- 
ning,  with  his  wife  and  young  family,  came  down 
from 

"  His  small  cottage  on  the  lonely  hill  " 

(Ponkawtassett),  where  he  was  living  when  he 
sailed  for  Italy,  and  ^during  Thoreau's  abode  at 
Walden.  This  residence  near  each  other,  from 
1850  onward,  brought  the  two  friends  much  to 
gether  in  their  daily  walks,  which  nobody  could 
describe  better  than  Channing,  for  no  one  was 
so  often  Henry's  companion,  whether  on  land  or 
water.  A  story  characteristic  of  each  was  told 
me  by  a  friend  of  the  Thoreaus  in  1895,  while 
Channing  was  living  with  me  and  giving  me 
many  particulars  of  his  long  friendship  with  the 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

other  Concord  authors.  Its  date  must  have  been 
1843-44,  while  the  Channings  were  living  in  a 
small  red  cottage  on  the  Cambridge  Turnpike 
near  Emerson's  garden  and  orchard :  — 

J.  H.,  then  a  child  of  ten,  perhaps,  going  home  with 
her  brother  at  noon  from  the  village  school  to  her  home 
on  the  same  Turnpike,  and  passing  Mrs.  Channing's 
cottage,  was  asked  by  the  young  wife  to  go  through  the 
woods  to  Walden,  tell  her  husband  that  Mr.  So-and-So 
had  come  up  from  Cambridge  to  make  a  call,  and  ask 
him  to  come  home  and  meet  him.  The  boy  and  girl 
soon  reached  Walden,  where  Thoreau  and  Channing 
were  out  in  a  boat.  The  boy  shouted  from  the  shore  the 
message  of  Ellen  Channing  to  her  spouse;  who  made 
some  indifferent  reply.  Thoreau,  however,  who  under 
stood  the  domestic  proprieties  and  was  scrupulous 
about  them,  turned  his  boat  to  the  shore,  and  returned 
alone  to  the  Emersons',  where  he  was  then  living.  He 
left  word  with  Mrs.  Channing  that  her  husband  would 
return  soon.  This  was  before  he  had  built  his  hut  at 
Walden. 

In  the  gift  copy  of  "Walden"  which  came  to 
him  from  Thoreau,  and  from  Channing  to  me 
(with  some  four  thousand  other  books),  the  poet 
had  made  these  entries:  — 

This  engraving  of  the  Walden  hut  is  but  a  feeble  cari 
cature  of  the  true  house.  It  was  moved  in  1847-48,  and 
still  stands  (in  1868).  June  4  in  that  year  Henry's 
house,  next  above  Old  Clarke's  on  the  Deserted  Road, 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

was  abandoned  by  a  new  occupant  of  the  place.  I  saw 
the  posts  hewn  by  Henry  out  of  the  pines  that  grew 
directly  in  its  rear  at  Walden;  and  the  old  shanty 
boards  put  together  by  him  with  the  old  nails;  and 
himself  putting  on  the  plaster,  in  the  summer  of  1845, 
twenty-three  years  ago.  They  had  served  Henry  for 
only  two  of  all  these  years;  and  for  the  rest  had  stood 
unknown  and  deserted  on  a  by-road  —  only  visited  con 
tinually  by  myself.  Such  is  fame. 

The  house  stood  and  fronted  there  very  much  as  at 
Walden.  It  was  first  bought  and  moved  to  the  Lincoln 
road  from  its  pine  wood,  by  a  non-compos,  who  thought 
he  would  live  in  it,  but  instead  went  to  live  at  the  Poor 
Farm  near  by. 

Thoreau  was  indeed  both  a  scholar  and  a  man 
of  affairs,  supporting  himself  during  his  whole 
life  by  his  own  industry;  and  was  never  "aim 
less  or  listless,"  as  some  ignorant  young  critic 
may  have  fancied  him.  But  had  the  hopes  of 
his  ancestry  on  either  side  —  the  mercantile, 
adventurous  Thoreaus  of  Jersey,  or  the  land 
owning,  fortune-seeking  Jones  family  of  the  Old 
Colony  —  been  crowned  with  success,  and  had  a 
fortune  of  thousands  come  to  this  heir  of  those 
thwarted  founders  of  a  Boston  family,  as  it  did 
to  his  English  friend  in  Shropshire,  Thoreau 
might  have  fulfilled  a  dream  of  his  youth;  of 
which  at  the  age  of  eight-and-twenty,  he  made 

[330  ] 


MAN    OF    LETTERS 

this  record  in  his  Journal  for  Saturday,  August 
23,  1845,  during  an  afternoon  in  what  is  now  the 
estate  of  one  of  the  Adams  families,  at  Baker 
Farm,  lying  on  Fair  Haven  Bay:  — 

When  on  my  way  this  afternoon,  "Shall  I  go  down 
this  long  hill  in  the  rain  to  fish  in  the  Fair  Haven 
pond?"  I  ask  myself.  And  I  say  to  myself:  "Yes, 
roam  far,  grasp  life  and  conquer  it!  learn  much  and 
live!  Your  fetters  are  knocked  off;  you  are  really  free. 
Stay  till  late  in  the  night;  be  unwise  and  daring." 

Again  I  remember  —  as  I  was  leaving  the  Irish 
man's  roof  after  the  rain,  and  bending  my  steps  again 
to  the  shore  of  Fair  Haven  Bay  —  my  haste  to  catch 
pickerel,  wading  in  retired  meadows,  in  sloughs  and 
bogholes,  in  remote  and  savage  places,  seemed  for  an 
instant  trivial  to  me,  who  had  been  sent  to  school  and 
college. 

But  then,  in  an  instant,  my  Genius  said  from  the 
western  heaven:  "Go  fish  and  hunt  far  and  wide, 
day  by  day;  and  rest  thee  by  many  hearthsides  with 
out  misgiving!  Rise  free  from  care  before  the  dawn, 
and  seek  adventures!  Let  the  noon  find  thee  by  other 
brooks,  and  the  night  overtake  thee  always  at  home. 
Lead  such  a  life  as  the  children  that  chase  butterflies 
in  the  meadow. 

"There  are  no  larger  fields  than  these,  no  nobler 
games,  no  more  extended  earth.  With  thy  life  unin 
sured,  live  free  and  forever  as  you  were  planned.  Grow 
wild  according  to  Nature,  like  these  ferns  and  brakes, 
which  study  not  morals  nor  philosophy;  nor  strive  to 

[331] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

become  a  cultivated  grass  for  cattle  to  eat;  or  like  these 
bulrushes,  behind  which  you  see  the  reddening  sky 
over  the  lake,  as  if  they  were  the  masts  of  vessels  in  a 
crowded  Venice  harbor. 

"Let  the  thunder  rumble  in  thy  own  tongue;  what 
if  it  brings  rain  to  farmers'  crops?  that  is  not  its  errand 
to  thee.  Take  shelter  under  the  cloud,  while  others  fly 
to  carts  and  sheds.  Enjoy  thy  dominion,  and  waive 
men,  the  fowl  and  the  quadruped,  and  all  creeping 
things.  Seek  without  toil  thy  daily  food;  thy  suste 
nance,  is  it  not  in  nature?  Through  want  of  confidence 
in  the  gods  men  are  where  they  are;  buying  and  sell 
ing,  owning  land,  following  trade, — and  spending  their 
lives  ignobly." 

This  was  a  counsel  of  perfection  for  the  "su 
perior  man"  to  follow  —  that  person  of  whom 
Thoreau  often  spoke,  and  whom  he  in  some  im 
portant  ways  represented  in  this  corner  of  the 
habitable  world.  He  could  have  been  trusted  to 
traverse  the  whole  world,  a  "pilgrim  of  Eter 
nity,"  as  Shelley  rather  prematurely  styled  his 
friend  Byron;  and  he  would  not  have  misused  his 
opportunities  as  Byron  did.  Thoreau  was  the 
servant  of  moral  principle,  not  of  caprice. 

His  occupation  as  land-surveyor  was  exactly 
the  same  as  that  which  Hector  St.  John  pursued 
at  times,  in  his  quarter-century's  life  in  Colonial 
America,  before  he  returned  to  his  father's  house 

[  332  ] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

in  Normandy  and  resumed  natural  relations  with 
his  native  France.  In  several  points  there  is  a 
resemblance  between  the  two  writers;  in  others 
the  widest  unlikeness.  Both  were  lovers  of  Na 
ture  and  an  outdoor  life;  both  were  philanthro 
pists,  though  Thoreau  disowned  the  name;  both 
came  into  popularity  by  a  single  book,  which 
the  twentieth  century  is  now  reading  for  St. 
John,  as  the  eighteenth  did;  while  the  nineteenth 
century  gradually  forgot  St.  John,  when  it  was 
learning  to  admire  Thoreau.  Both  were  mercan 
tile  in  their  methodical  habits,  and  both  had  that 
native  and  occasional  elegance  which  French 
descent  seems  to  carry  with  it.  But  Thoreau 
was  all  his  life  training  for  literature;  while  St. 
John  was  turning  away  from  it,  in  despite  of  his 
talents  and  tastes  in  that  direction. 

In  land-surveying  Thoreau  was  merely  making 
that  his  business  which  had  been  his  pleasure.  It 
kept  him  in  the  pastures,  woods,  and  fields,  and 
exercised  that  mechanical  skill  which,  like  Alcott, 
he  had  by  nature  and  training,  while  it  was  de 
nied  to  the  other  Concord  authors.  Surveying  gave 
Thoreau  companions  in  his  outdoor  life  —  land 
owners  and  chainbearers,  as  well  as  the  hunters 
and  fishermen  and  woodcutters  in  whom  his 
heart  delighted;  and  whom  he  certainly  did  not 

333 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

"disdain,"  as  Whitman  thought  he  held  the  whole 
race  of  man  in  contempt.  It  was  a  form  of  cen 
sure  often  misapplied  to  the  Transcendentalists. 
The  wife  of  George  Ripley,  the  founder  of  Brook 
Farm,  while  he  was  pastor  of  a  Boston  church, 
wrote  to  one  of  her  friends,  before  Emerson  left 
the  pulpit,  saying,  "Waldo  Emerson  was  here 
yesterday,  preaching  for  George  —  with  his  chin 
in  the  air,  in  scorn  of  the  whole  human  race." 

It  was  mis  judgment  in  such  instances  —  an 
effect  of  manner  rather  than  want  of  heart; 
something  like  that  alleged  account  of  Carlyle 
by  Emerson,  when  he  returned  from  England 
in  1848.  "He  sits  in  his  fourth-story  study  and 
sneers,"  was  the  reply  said  to  have  been  made 
to  one  who  inquired  of  Emerson  what  his  friend 
Carlyle  was  doing  at  Chelsea. 

In  whatever  active  pursuit  Thoreau  engaged, 
he  gave  his  close  attention  to  it;  and  followed  the 
Yankee  injunction  "Mind  your  own  business" 
with  assiduity.  Orford,  near  Dartmouth  College, 
bred  a  yeoman  who  was  driving  his  oxen  with  a 
haycart  into  that  village,  when  it  was  still  a  small 
college  town  —  without  his  shoes  and  stockings. 
An  inquisitive  or  supercilious  college  professor, 
meeting  him,  said,  "  Do  the  folks  over  in  Orford 
all  go  barefooted?"  "Wai,"  was  the  sedate  an- 

[  334  ] 


MAN    OF   LETTERS 

swer,  "some  on  'em  doos  —  and  the  rest  on  'em 
minds  their  own  business."  Something  of  this 
Yankee  character  was  certainly  in  Thoreau, 
along  with  that  high-spirited  turn  of  mind  that 
in  youth  would  have  taken  him  roaming,  like  a 
gypsy  or  an  English  lord,  wandering  at  will  over 
the  ecumenical  earth.  The  "superior  man"  is 
wont  to  be  of  two  or  three  natures,  and  to  con 
sult  his  own  will  about  his  own  conduct.  Such, 
at  any  rate,  was  Henry  Thoreau,  in  his  active 
pursuits. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THOREAU  AS  AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 


"WALDEN"  has  thus  far  been,  and  perhaps  will 
always  be,  Thoreau's  best-read  book,  —  though 
he  is  now  represented  in  literature  and  biography 
by  more  than  thirty  volumes,  all  containing  sam 
ples  of  his  sententious,  humorous,  and  paradoxi 
cal  wisdom.  First  in  date,  though  unpublished 
until  he  had  been  forty  years  in  his  grave,  is  the 
little  book  which  he  named  "The  Service,"  and 
left  incomplete.  For  it  is  evident  that  he  meant 
to  make  it  a  manual  for  the  spiritual  Soldier, 
such  as  he  hoped  himself  to  be,  and  to  find  fit 
comrades,  if  but  few,  among  his  contemporaries. 
Walt  Whitman,  who  seems  now  to  be  held  in 
some  such  estimation  by  a  numerous  and  in 
creasing  class  of  followers,  and  with  whom  three 
of  the  Concord  authors  had  a  slight  but  agreeable 
acquaintance,  thought  he  had  found  the  weak 
spot  in  Thoreau's  armor  as  a  Recruit,  and  said 
to  his  friend  Traubel:  — 

His  great  fault  was  disdain  for  men,  —  for  Tom, 
Dick  and  Harry;  inability  to  appreciate  the  average 
life,  even  the  exceptional  life.  It  seemed  to  me  a  want 

[  336  ] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

of  imagination.  He  could  not  put  his  life  into  any  other 
life,  or  realize  why  one  man  was  so,  and  another  man 
was  not  so;  was  impatient  with  other  people.  It  was  a 
surprise  to  me  to  meet  in  Thoreau  such  a  case  of  super 
ciliousness. 

This  was  a  misapprehension  by  Whitman, 
whom  I  knew  well.  Thoreau's  disdain  was  as 
much  for  himself  as  for  the  man  in  the  street; 
it  was  his  way  of  speaking  that  was  at  fault.  The 
best  of  his  poems  are  free  from  this  blemish, 
which  we  must  admit  it  was,  in  a  certain  sense. 
Emerson  recognized  it  and  sometimes  spoke  of 
it;  though  he  usually  overlooked  it,  in  the  bright 
light  of  Thoreau's  better  qualities.  He  touched 
on  it  in  his  early  acquaintance  with  Charles  Mal- 
loy,  one  of  the  gentlest  and  most  receptive  of 
Emerson's  rustic  disciples,  and  a  good  inter 
preter  of  the  Master  to  other  followers.  To 
Ellery  Channing,  much  later,  Emerson  said:  — 

Longfellow  and  Lowell  have  not  appreciated  Tho 
reau  as  a  thinker  and  writer;  and  Judge  Hoar  has  con 
firmed  them  in  their  skepticism.  Henry  makes  an 
instant  impression,  one  way  or  the  other.  He  met 
Cholmondeley  in  my  house,  who  was  at  once  pleased 
with  his  nonchalant  manner;  and  his  admiration  grew 
greater  by  daily  contact.  Thoreau  did  not  at  first  ap 
preciate  his  Shropshire  friend,  but  came  to  value  him 
highly. 

[337] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

"  Walden"  deals  far  less  in  paradoxes  than  does 
"The  Service,"  and  much  more  with  the  plain 
facts  of  Nature  and  human  nature,  which  Tho- 
reau  quite  profoundly  understood.  He  omitted 
much  of  the  matter  he  had  collected,  at  Walden 
and  long  before  that,  when  finally  making  selec 
tions  for  its  publication.  I  happen  to  have  seen 
the  final  "revise"  of  the  first  edition  of  "Wal 
den"  in  1854,  which  is  now,  like  most  of  the 
Walden  manuscripts,  among  the  treasures  of 
Mr.  Bixby  at  St.  Louis.  In  correcting  the  proof 
carefully,  Thoreau  first  criticised  the  cut  of  his 
cabin  drawn  by  his  sister  Sophia.  He  must  have 
noticed  that  her  trees  were  firs  and  not  pines, 
with  a  few  deciduous  trees  that  did  not  then  grow 
there;  but  it  did  not  disturb  him.  He  wished  to 
have  the  hut  just  right,  and  wrote:  — 

I  would  suggest  a  little  alteration,  chiefly  in  the 
door,  in  the  wide  projection  of  thereof  at  the  front;  and 
that  the  bank  more  immediately  about  the  house  be 
brought  out  more  distinctly. 

On  page  58  he  made  an  odd  note,  changing 
70  to  90  cents,  in  the  railroad  fare  to  Fitchburg, 
adding  at  the  bottom,  "They  have  raised  the 
fares  within  a  week." 

Among  "dead  matter,"  on  page  274,  is  a  pas- 
F  338  1 


SOPHIA  THOREAU 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

sage  on  architecture  from  the  "Lay  of  the  Last 
Minstrel"  beginning  — 

"  The  keystone  that  locked  each  ribbed  aisle." 

It  had  no  special  pertinence,  but  is  mentioned 
here  as  showing  that  Thoreau  had  read  Scott, 
which  hardly  appears  elsewhere. 

From  the  same  proof,  this  mystical  passage 
was  dropped  in  revision:  — 

If  we  traverse  the  earth,  we  shall  discover  no  insti 
tution  which  Friendship  has  established.  It  has  no 
temple,  no  column.  It  governs  nowhere.  It  is  as  a 
thing  unheard  of;  if  you  inquire  of  it,  you  may  not  hear. 
It  has  no  gallery,  no  school,  no  church.  It  is  not  recog 
nized  in  any  creed,  nor  by  any  religion.  The  wisest 
books  of  the  ancient  world  —  the  Scriptures  even  —  do 
not  contain  its  code,  nor  inculcate  its  maxims. 

Why  will  we  always  be  trading  and  never  conclude  a 
bargain?  There  goes  a  rumor  that  the  earth  is  in 
habited  ;  but  not  yet  have  we  seen  a  footprint  on  the 
shore.  How  very  remotely  allied  to  us  are  our  brothers 
and  sisters ! 

It  is  hard  to  see  the  reason  for  omitting  many 
things  in  printing  the  "Walden"  manuscripts. 
Why,  for  instance,  should  the  last  dying  speech 
of  Tom  Hyde  the  tinker  have  been  shortened? 
"Tom  added,  'You  Boston  folks  and  Roxbury 
people  will  want  Tom  Hyde  to  mend  your  ket 
tles.'  '  The  passage  was  in  the  Journal  of  1849 

[  839  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

(p.  383),  which  no  longer  exists.  Can  Tom  have 
been  an  early  imported  English  gypsy,  like  him 
who  in  New  Hampshire  founded  the  family  of 
Leathers,  celebrated  by  Whittier,  of  whom  one 
illustrious  descendant  was  Henry  Wilson,  who 
became  Vice-President  of  the  United  States? 

With  all  his  natural  history,  in  "Walden"  and 
elsewhere,  Thoreau  appears  averse  from  science. 
Channing  tried  to  explain  this:  — 

I  have  known  so  many  and  so  long  studies  of  his  over 
his  admired  birds,  that  I  was  surprised  to  hear  him 
decry  the  usual  method  of  studying  them.  It  was  con 
nected  with  his  dislike  of  Science  in  general.  For  in 
stance;  a  very  well-known  savant  had  spent  many 
years  in  looking  at  the  eggs  of  bats,  beetles,  frogs,  and 
the  like,  to  find  how  they  begin  and  end;  he  printed  an 
enormous  book  about  Turtles.  Here  was  a  case  in  point. 
If  there  was  a  subject  with  which  Henry  was  familiar,  it 
was  Turtles.  He  had  spent  days  and  nights  in  watch 
ing  them ;  had  caught  them,  hatched  them,  noted  down 
on  the  spot  the  whole  process  of  laying  their  eggs,  — 
and  probably  knew  more  about  this  creature,  as  it  ap 
pears  in  the  mud-puddles  and  to  men's  eyes,  than  all 
the  titled  naturalists  in  Massachusetts.  But  in  this 
great  microscopic  folio,  after  reading  it,  he  told  me  he 
did  not  find  one  single,  solitary  hint  or  word  as  to  the 
habits  or  life  of  any  species  of  turtle,  any  more  than  if 
he  who  wrote  it  had  never  seen  a  specimen  of  that 
reptile. 

f  340  1 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

I  do  not  think  he  relished  Science  in  long  words.  To 
pry  into  Nature,  to  steal  her  fine  secrets  with  a  series 
of  skilfully  ground  watch-glasses,  was  not  agreeable  to 
Thoreau.  He  was  not  the  thing  Wordsworth  calls 

"Philosopher!  a  fingering  slave, 

One  that  would  peep  and  botanize 
Upon  his  mother's  grave." 

He  loved  Nature  in  the  lump.  He  had  the  filial  feeling, 
the  veneration  of  a  son  for  his  mother.  He  thought  she 
had  her  veils,  which  should  be  respected;  that  we  should 
not  too  narrowly  pry,  nor  too  much  anatomize. 

He  was  not  a  believer  in  the  things  he  did  not  know 
about.  With  the  Christian  Church  and  its  fatalities  it 
fared  no  better  than  with  the  medical  men.  When  he 
was  once  ill  and  suffering,  I  said,  in  my  way,  —  not  al 
ways  serious,  —  "You  will  need  a  father-confessor." 
He  replied,  "I  have  nothing  to  confess."  For  the 
doctors  he  had  compassion;  he  looked  on  them  as  de 
luded;  but  not  so  with  the  clergy.  His  trouble  with  the 
priests  was  that  they  were  not  alone  ignorant  of  the 
oracles,  but  ignorant  of  their  ignorance,  —  the  most 
fatal  of  all  delusions,  says  Coleridge.  The  priests  read 
out  of  a  book  detailing  the  acts  of  a  Jewish  youth, 
poor,  ill-fed,  without  even  a  fox-hole  to  crawl  to;  while 
their  building  was  the  most  costly  in  the  village. 

These  peculiarities  of  his  friend  were  care 
fully  noted  by  Channing.  On  a  point  that  has 
been  far  too  much  dwelt  on,  he  said  to  me:  — 

In  Emerson's  mode  of  writing  out  from  his  Journals, 
Thoreau  imitated  him;  and  yet  there  was  no  such  thing 

[341] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

as  conscious  imitation  in  him.  His  handwriting,  too, 
had  such  a  resemblance  to  Emerson's  that  I  could 
hardly  tell  them  apart.  It  was  very  strange;  for  Henry 
never  imitated  anybody.  There  was  nothing  but  orig 
inality  in  him,  as  I  know  from  my  many  hours  with 
him.  In  all  my  walks  with  Emerson,  —  not  less  than 
a  thousand,  —  I  seldom  heard  him  mention  a  person 
by  name.  He  had  singular  titles  for  Thoreau  and  others, 
and  avoided  their  personal  appellation.  Henry  had 
usually  the  same  habit;  nor  did  he  reply  directly  to  any 
observation  or  question  of  mine,  but  went  on  with 
original  remarks  of  his  own.  He  had  the  habit  not  to 
dwell  on  the  past.  He  rarely  read  a  book  over  twice, 
and  he  loved  not  to  repeat  a  story  after  its  first  fresh 
ness.  His  talent  was  vigorous,  onward,  in  the  moment, 
—  which  was  perfectly  filled;  and  then  he  went  to  the 
next  with  great  speed. 

He  took  daily  walks  to  the  post-office  after  the  death 
of  his  father,  three  years  before  his  own;  this  for  the 
benefit  of  the  family,  for  he  was  a  martinet  in  the 
family  service.  He  had  three  varieties  of  boots  for 
winter  walking,  one  of  ten-pound  India-rubber  size,  in 
which  he  seemed  lost.  In  summer  he  used  low  shoes, 
coarse  and  substantial,  with  nails  in  the  toes,  and 
leathern  strings,  tied  in  a  "hard  knot." 

It  must  not  be  considered  that  Channing  is 
infallible,  though  he  is  so  good  a  witness  —  the 
best  of  the  single  witnesses  in  Thoreau's  case  — 
as  to  matters  of  fact.  Matters  of  opinion  are 
variable;  the  same  witness  has  not  always  held 

1342] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

to  the  same  opinion.  What  Thoreau  said  himself 
about  his  extravagance  of  remark,  when  Chan- 
ning  was  his  interlocutor,  is  worth  citing:  — 

My  companion  tempts  me  to  certain  licenses  of 
speech,  i.e.  to  reckless  and  sweeping  expressions  which 
I  am  wont  to  regret  that  I  have  used.  That  is,  I  find 
that  I  have  used  more  harsh,  extravagant,  and  cyni 
cal  expressions  concerning  mankind  and  individuals 
than  I  intended.  I  find  it  difficult  to  make  to  him  a 
sufficiently  moderate  statement.  I  think  it  is  because 
I  have  not  his  sympathy  in  my  sober  and  constant 
view.  He  asks  for  a  paradox,  an  eccentric  statement, 
and  too  often  I  give  it  to  him.1 

At  this  date  he  was  sending  his  "copy"  for 
"Walden"  to  the  printer.  A  few  days  later 
(March  31)  he  wrote:  — 

In  criticising  your  writing,  trust  your  fine  instinct. 
There  are  many  things  which  we  come  very  near 
questioning,  but  do  not  question.  When  I  have  sent 
off  my  manuscripts  to  the  printer,  certain  objection 
able  sentences  or  expressions  are  sure  to  obtrude 
themselves  on  my  attention  with  force,  though  I  had 
not  consciously  suspected  them  before.  My  critical 
instinct  then  at  once  breaks  the  ice  and  comes  to  the 
surface. 

It  was  a  very  acute  appreciation  by  Channing 
which  made  him  say  of  Thoreau  that  his  task  was 

1  Journal  of  March  12,  1854. 
[343] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

to  show  the  multum  in  the  parvo,  —  "to  boil  up 
the  little  into  the  big."  But  this  may  have  been 
caught  from  an  expression  of  Thoreau's  own, 
uttered  in  that  last  year,  1861,  when  he  felt  the 
shadow  of  death  creeping  over  him,  but  was  still 
equal  to  a  walk  with  his  dear  friend:  "To  elevate 
the  little  into  the  great  is  genius."  Quoting  this, 
Channing  says:  "I  remember  well  the  exact  spot 
where  he  said  this.  He  was  then  in  his  last  sick 
ness,  and  said  that  he  could  never  feel  warm."  In 
the  next  year  (1862),  when  these  much  prized 
walks  must  be  given  up,  and  Thoreau  was  con 
fined  to  the  house,  except  as  some  friend's  carriage 
took  him  for  a  short  drive,  Channing  records 
this:  — 

He  said  to  me  once,  standing  at  the  window,  —  "I 
cannot  see  on  the  outside  at  all.  We  thought  our 
selves  great  philosophers  in  those  wet  days  when  we 
used  to  go  out  and  sit  down  by  the  wall-sides."  This 
was  absolutely  all  he  was  ever  heard  to  say  of  that 
outward  world  during  his  illness;  neither  could  a 
stranger  in  the  least  infer  that  he  had  ever  a  friend  in 
wood  or  field. 

Among  the  papers  left  to  me  by  Channing,  who 
died  in  my  house,  where  he  had  long  lived  as  one 
of  my  family,  I  found  an  unfinished  Journal,  kept 
for  some  months,  five  years  after  Thoreau's  death, 

[344  ] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

which  recorded  chiefly  his  lonely  rambles  where  he 
had  walked  with  Henry,  and  the  reflections  his 
reading  and  observation  gave  him;  as  if  he  were 
seeking  to  follow  that  patient  example  in  journal 
izing  each  day's  experience.  In  this  manuscript 
Channing  wrote :  — 

Henry  once  said,  speaking  of  some  minute  thing, 
that  "  the  art  of  genius  was  to  raise  the  little  into  the 
large."  It  was  one  of  the  last  times  we  were  out  to 
gether,  near  Flint's  Bridge.  How  far  it  was  from  true  is 
another  matter.  He  had  a  taste  for  exaggeration  that 
was  remarkable.  He  loved  to  wonder;  and  the  more 
usual  the  matter  was,  the  more  he  wondered.  He  ex 
aggerated  the  little;  made  much  out  of  nothing  al 
most;  and  had  a  way  of  always  being  surprised  at 
things  that  were  certain  to  come.  Henry  thought  and 
said  a  great  deal  about  the  coming  of  the  first  bluebird, 
the  piping  of  the  hylas,  the  appearance  of  the  turtle 
and  the  first  plants.  He  could  never  sufficiently  wonder 
at  these  things.  But  the  thing  that  occurs  twice  is  not 
wonderful. 

Whether  a  customary  thing  is  wonderful  or  not, 
depends  on  the  person  wondering.  To  Thoreau 
life  was  a  daily  miracle;  he  admired  the  repetition 
which  did  not  quite  reproduce  the  previous  expe 
rience,  and  yet  blissfully  recalled  it;  as  we  may  take 
pleasure  in  a  remembered  strain  of  music,  heard 
from  a  new  performer.  Mere  repetition  is  happi- 

[345] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

ness  to  a  child;  and  Thoreau  had  retained,  far 
beyond  most  men,  the  sensibility  of  childhood  to 
the  events  of  Nature.  "  He  exaggerated  the  per 
manence  of  everything  but  what  men  do,"  said  a 
friend.  "  A  picture,  a  novel,  a  piece  of  music  did  not 
affect  him  in  that  fashion.  This  was  his  special 
trait,  and  as  pleasing  as  possible  to  his  companion." 
Behind  and  beyond  all  his  jests  and  paradoxes 
was  his  sincere  love  of  a  simple  life,  freed  from  the 
encumbrances  which  he  found  all  about  him,  even 
in  the  comparatively  simple  surroundings  of  Con 
cord,  where  most  of  his  thoughtful  days  were 
spent.  He  early  found  the  work  he  had  to  do  — 
to  investigate  Nature  under  the  light  of  idealism, 
and  to  report  what  he  saw.  Edward  Hoar,  who 
rambled  much  with  him  when  a  boy,  and  in  later 
years  went  with  him  to  the  Maine  woods  and  to 
Mount  Washington,  said  of  him  to  me:  — 

Realism  in  description  was  Henry's  great  forte; 
in  that  respect  I  compare  him  to  Dante.  Emerson  sees 
through  other  men's  eyes;  Thoreau  always  with  his 
own  eyes,  and  makes  his  own  description.  Also,  he  had 
inherited  a  French  mind  and  mode  of  writing,  with  an 
elegance  seldom  found  in  American  authors.1 

1  Edward  Hoar  was  one  of  three  brothers,  in  age  between  Judge 
Rockwood  Hoar,  his  elder,  and  G.  F.  Hoar,  the  younger,  both  more 
publicly  known;  but  in  Nature-study  and  literary  appreciation 
excelling  both.  Elizabeth  was  their  sister. 

[346] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

We  are  apt  to  speak  of  persons  whom  we  ad 
mire  for  firmness  and  courage  as  of  Roman  or  of 
Spartan  mould.  Occasionally  a  person  so  recalls 
the  "sweetness  and  light"  of  the  best  Grecian 
types  that  we  call  him  "a  true  Greek."  Such  was 
Charles  Emerson  in  the  early  poem  of  Dr.  Holmes; 
and  such,  in  some  aspects,  was  Bronson  Alcott. 
Thoreau,  of  all  the  Concord  authors  most  familiar 
with  Greek  and  Roman  literature,  had  close  rela 
tions  with  several  of  the  philosophers  of  antiquity. 
In  his  constant  practice  and  inculcation  of  the 
simple  life,  he  resembled  Socrates;  and  equally  in 
his  moral  courage  and  his  love  of  gossip.  But  there 
were  likewise  points  of  resemblance  to  the  Cynic 
Diogenes,  and  to  the  greater  Stoics;  so  that  Emer 
son  chose  to  consider  him  as  a  Stoic  and  little  else 
—  a  classification  his  family  would  not  accept. 
In  the  mass  of  his  character  he  was  best  depicted 
by  Channing,  in  a  poem  ("  Near  Home  ")  written  at 
Concord,  Plymouth,  New  Bedford,  and  other  haunts 
of  the  two  friends,  and  dedicated  to  Thoreau:  — 

"Henry!  though  with  thy  name  a  nobler  verse 
Might  fitlier  blend,  inspire  and  lead  the  way 
To  more  sublime  emotions,  that  entrance 
The  listening  city  and  the  landward  town,  — 
Still  let  thy  name  stand  here,  —  of  one  the  name 
Who  to  no  meaner  service  nobly  walked 
Than  Virtue's  service. 

[347] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Modest,  mild  and  kind, 

Who  never  spurned  the  needing  from  thy  door,  — 
(Door  of  thy  heart,  which  is  a  palace  gate;) 
Temperate  and  faithful,  in  whose  word  the  world 
Might  trust,  sure  to  repay;  un vexed  by  care, 
Unawed  by  Fortune's  nod,  slave  to  no  lord, 
Nor  coward  to  thy  peers;  long  shalt  thou  live! 
Not  in  this  feeble  verse,  this  sleeping  age,  — 
But  in  the  roll  of  Heaven,  and  at  the  bar 
Of  that  high  court  where  Virtue  is  in  place." 

This  prediction  of  sixty  years  ago  is  now  amply 
fulfilled. 

But  what  title  had  Thoreau  or  Alcott,  or  even 
Emerson,  to  be  called  philosophers?  Many  who 
call  themselves  by  that  name  have  denied  it  to 
these  three;  and  some  have  been  unwilling  to  allow 
that  they  were  poets.  Poetical  they  admit,  but 
not  poets;  wise,  in  odd  ways  and  at  odd  times,  but 
philosophers  —  never !  Perish  the  thought !  they 
had  no  system,  they  developed  no  dialectic,  they 
were  ignorant  of  metaphysics.  But  they  were 
Lovers  of  Wisdom,  which  the  Greek  term  signifies. 
And  what  is  Wisdom?  An  ancient  book,  debarred 
from  general  reading,  by  calling  it "  apocryphal," 
thus  defines  it:  — 

Wisdom  knoweth  things  of  old,  and  doth  conjecture 
what  is  to  come;  she  hath  the  subtilties  of  speech,  and 
can  expound  dark  sentences;  she  foreseeth  signs  and 

[348] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

wonders,  and  the  event  of  seasons  and  ages;  she 
teacheth  temperance  and  forethought,  justice  and  for 
titude;  than  which  men  can  have  in  their  life  nothing 
more  profitable. 

In  this  way  the  Concord  authors  earned  and 
merited  the  name  of  philosophers.  Truth  comes 
by  insight  and  in  flashes;  it  is  a  datum  and  not  a 
logical  inference.  You  can  afterward  connect  its 
elements  by  the  steps  of  a  syllogism,  or  a  score  of 
syllogisms;  but  that  is  a  concession  to  human 
frailty;  it  came  at  first  from  that  mystical  Wisdom 
celebrated  in  our  Apocrypha.  Thoreau,  apart 
from  his  recognition  of  this  source,  had  also  in 
Aristotelean  strictness  a  more  practical  and  every 
day  means  of  verifying  his  data.  He  was  a  better 
geometer  than  Plato  or  Pythagoras,  and  as  good 
an  observer  as  any  of  the  ancients. 

The  copious  Journals,  now  printed  nearly  in 
full,  so  far  as  preserved,  are  an  invaluable  record, 
not  only  of  events  and  observations,  but  of  char 
acter.  They  disclose  varying  moods,  but  one  fixed 
and  unchanging  character,  of  a  very  high  order. 
They  show,  too,  how  his  forms  of  expression 
changed,  and  what  a  deep  insight  he  had  into 
human  nature.  With  a  spirit  essentially  poetic, 
he  lacked  the  constant  sensibility  to  rhythmical 
form,  which  persons  much  less  poetical  often  have 

[  349  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

and  employ.  His  first  verse  printed  (in  the 
"Dial")  was  that  confession  of  love  for  Ellen 
Sewall,  the  mention  of  which  found  very  late 
access  to  his  biographies  —  partly  because  the 
earliest  Journals  and  poems  were  destroyed  by 
Thoreau  himself.  Like  much  of  his  poesy,  it  is 
too  long,  and  with  stanzas  of  very  unequal  merit; 
but  here  are  some  of  the  best:  — 

Lately,  alas,  I  knew  a  gentle  boy, 

Whose  features  all  were  cast  in  Virtue's  mould, 
As  one  she  had  designed  for  Beauty's  toy, 

But  after  manned  him  for  her  own  stronghold. 

On  every  side  he  open  was  as  day, 

That  you  might  see  no  lack  of  strength  within, 
For  walls  and  ports  do  only  serve  alway 

For  a  pretence  to  feebleness  and  sin. 

Say  not  that  Csesar  was  victorious, 

With  toil  and  strife  who  stormed  the  House  of  Fame, 
In  other  sense  this  youth  was  glorious,  — 

Himself  a  kingdom  wheresoever  he  came. 

He  forayed  like  the  subtile  haze  of  Summer, 
That  stilly  shows  fresh  landscape  to  the  eyes, 

And  revolutions  works  without  a  murmur, 
Or  rustling  of  a  leaf  beneath  the  skies. 

So  was  I  taken  unawares  by  this, 

I  quite  forgot  my  homage  to  confess; 
Yet  now  am  forced  to  know,  though  hard  it  is, 

I  might  have  loved  him,  had  I  loved  him  less. 

[S50] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

Each  moment  as  we  nearer  drew  to  each, 
A  stern  respect  withheld  us  farther  yet; 

So  that  we  seemed  beyond  each  other's  reach, 
And  less  acquainted  than  when  first  we  met. 

Eternity  may  not  the  chance  repeat, 
But  I  must  tread  my  single  way  alone,  - 

In  sad  remembrance  that  we  once  did  meet, 
And  know  that  bliss  irrevocably  gone. 

The  spheres  henceforth  my  elegy  shall  sing, 

For  elegy  has  other  subject  none; 
Each  strain  of  music  in  my  ears  shall  ring 

Knell  of  departure  from  that  other  one. 

Is't  then  too  late  the  damage  to  repair? 

Distance,  forsooth,  from  my  weak  grasp  hath  reft 
The  empty  husk,  and  clutched  the  useless  tare, 

But  in  my  hands  the  wheat  and  kernel  left. 

If  I  but  love  that  virtue  which  he  is, 
Though  it  be  scented  in  the  morning  air, 

Still  shall  we  be  truest  acquaintances, 
Nor  mortals  know  a  sympathy  more  rare. 

On  the  testimony  of  both  Emerson  and  Theo 
dore  Parker,  and  of  other  persons  who  knew  the 
facts,  this  "gentle  boy"  was  Miss  Ellen  Sewall, 
then  of  Scituate,  where  her  father  was  the  village 
pastor,  —  a  first  cousin  of  Mrs.  Alcott,  and  a  de 
scendant  of  the  old  Puritan  justice  Samuel  Sewall, 
and  also  a  granddaughter  of  Mrs.  Colonel  Ward, 
intimate  in  the  Thoreau  family.  Her  aunt,  Miss 

[351] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Prudence  Ward,  writing  to  her  sister,  Mrs.  Sewall, 
at  Scituate  (June  29, 1838),  said:  — 

Mr.  Thoreau's  potatoes  and  squashes  [at  the  Park- 
man  house]  look  finely,  and  Henry's  melons  are  flour 
ishing.  He  has  over  sixty  hills,  and  we  are  likely  to 
have  an  abundance.  John's  school  is  flourishing;  there 
are  four  boys  from  Boston  boarding  with  us.  I  want 
Ellen  Sewall  should  make  us  a  visit  of  a  week  or  two. 
Tell  little  Mary  Ward  that  we  have  a  little  black  kitten, 
and  that  the  martins  have  driven  away  the  bluebirds 
and  taken  possession  of  their  box.  Our  flower-garden 
looks  very  gay.  It  is  more  forward  than  our  neighbors', 
and  filled  with  a  variety  of  roses  and  other  flowers. 

Into  this  summer  paradise  came  the  fair  Ellen, 
and  her  brother,  Edmund  Quincy  Sewall,  who  be 
came  a  pupil  of  John  and  Henry  Thoreau,  in  the 
school  already  described.  Both  the  brothers  fell 
in  love  with  her,  but  John  seems  to  have  been  her 
favorite.  He  was  a  gentler  person  then,  and  more 
acceptable,  both  as  teacher  and  lover,  than  the 
more  assertive  Henry.  She  remained  unwedded 
until  after  John's  death,  early  in  1842,  but  after 
wards  became  the  wife  of  a  clergyman,  Rev. 
Joseph  Osgood,  preaching  at  Cohasset  near  Scit 
uate.  The  Thoreaus  continued  to  visit  her,  and 
at  Sophia's  death  she  left  Mrs.  Osgood  a  legacy. 

No  other  love  affair  of  Henry's  is  on  record, 
and  he  may  be  supposed  to  have  withdrawn  his 

[352J 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

suit  to  the  fair  maid,  in  deference  to  his  elder 
brother,  whom  he  dearly  loved.  Channing,  who 
must  have  known  of  this  episode  in  the  youth  of 
his  friend,  wrote  in  his  Journal  of  March,  1867, 
this  passage:  — 

Henry  was  fond  of  making  an  ado,  a  wonder,  a  sur 
prise,  of  all  facts  that  took  place  out  of  doors;  but  a 
picture,  a  piece  of  music,  a  novel,  did  not  affect  him  in 
that  fashion.  This  trait  of  exaggeration  was  as  pleasing 
as  possible  to  his  companions.  Nothing  was  more  de 
lightful  than  the  enormous  curiosity,  the  effervescing 
wonder,  of  this  child  of  Nature  —  glad  of  everything 
its  mother  said  or  did.  This  joy  in  Nature  is  something 
we  can  get  over,  like  love.  And  yet  love,  —  that  is  a 
hard  toy  to  smash  and  fling  under  the  grate,  for  good. 
But  Henry  made  no  account  at  all  of  love,  apparently; 
he  had  notions  about  friendship. 

It  was  under  friendship  alone  that  must  be 
classed  those  charming  verses  that  he  addressed 

To  the  Maiden  in  the  East 

Low  in  the  eastern  sky 
Is  set  thy  glancing  eye; 
And  though  its  gracious  light 
Ne'er  rises  to  my  sight, 
Yet  every  star  that  climbs 
Above  the  gnarled  limbs 
Of  yonder  hill l 
Conveys  thy  gentle  will. 

i  Bare  Hill  by  Walden. 
[  353  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Believe  I  knew  thy  thought, 
And  that  the  zephyrs  brought 
Thy  kindest  wishes  through, 
As  mine  they  bear  to  you; 
That  some  attentive  cloud 
Did  pause  amid  the  crowd 

Above  my  head, 
While  gentle  things  were  said. 

Believe  the  thrushes  sung, 
And  that  the  flower-bells  rung; 
That  herbs  exhaled  their  scent, 
And  beasts  knew  what  was  meant; 
The  trees  a  welcome  waved, 
And  lakes  their  margins  laved, 

When  thy  free  mind 
To  my  retreat  did  wind. 

It  was  a  summer  eve, 
The  air  did  gently  heave, 
While  yet  a  low-hung  cloud 
Thine  eastern  skies  did  shroud: 
The  lightning's  silent  gleam, 
Startling  my  drowsy  dream, 

Seemed  like  the  flash 
Under  thy  dark  eyelash. 

From  yonder  comes  the  sun; 
But  soon  his  course  is  run, 
Rising  to  trivial  day 
Along  his  dusty  way; 
But  thy  noontide  completes 
Only  auroral  heats, 

Nor  ever  sets, 
To  hasten  vain  regrets. 

[354] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

Direct  thy  pensive  eye 
Into  the  western  sky, 
And  when  the  evening  star 
Doth  glimmer  from  afar, 
Upon  the  mountain  line, 
Accept  it  for  a  sign 

That  I  am  near, 
And  thinking  of  thee  here. 

I  '11  be  thy  Mercury, 
Thou  Cytherea  to  me; 
Distinguished  by  thy  face, 
The  Earth  shall  learn  my  place; 
As  here  beneath  thy  light 
Will  I  outwear  the  night, 

With  mingled  ray 
Leading  the  westward  way. 

Still  will  I  strive  to  be 
As  if  thou  wert  with  me; 
Whatever  path  I  take, 
It  shall  be,  for  thy  sake, 
Of  gentle  slope  and  wide, 
As  thou  wert  by  my  side, 

Without  a  root 
To  trip  thy  gentle  foot. 

I'll  walk  with  quiet  pace, 
And  choose  the  smoothest  place; 
And  careful  dip  the  oar, 
And  shun  the  winding  shore; 
And  gently  steer  my  boat 
Where  water-lilies  float, 

And  cardinal  flowers 
Stand  in  then*  sylvan  bowers. 

[355] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

This  was  plainly  written  at  Walden,  after  Miss 
Russell  had  returned  to  Plymouth,  her  home, 
whence  she  had  visited  Concord  to  reside  with  her 
Plymouth  neighbor  Mrs.  Waldo  Emerson.  She 
soon  after  married  Marston  Watson,  and  became 
for  many  years  the  hostess  at  Hillside,  where  the 
Concord  circles  frequently  visited.  For  his  friend 
Watson,  Thoreau  surveyed  the  park  and  orchards 
in  that  sylvan  retreat,  where  Alcott  carried  the 
surveyor's  chain,  and  even  planned  a  cottage  for 
his  own  family  there,  after  his  own  Concord  "Hill 
side"  was  sold  to  Hawthorne  in  1852,  and  took  its 
new  name  of  "Wayside." 

These  astronomical  loves  of  Henry  and  Mary 
remind  one  of  the  "vegetable  loves"  of  Andrew 
Marvell,  who  wrote, — to  one  of  the  Fairfaxes,  per 
chance  :  — 

*  'Our  vegetable  loves  should  grow 
Vaster  than  empires  and  more  slow; 

I  would 

Love  you  ten  years  before  the  Flood, 
And  you  should,  if  you  please,  refuse 
Till  the  Conversion  of  the  Jews." 

The  quarterly  "Dial"  for  four  years,  and  the 
Concord  Lyceum  for  twenty-five,  gave  publica 
tion  to  Thoreau's  writings  in  his  journeyman 
years  of  literature;  but  his  first  volume,  the 
"Week,"  came  out,  at  his  own  expense,  in  1849. 

[356] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

Neither  "The  Service"  nor  the  "Raleigh"  got 
into  the  "  Dial,"  for  which  they  were  written;  but 
the  latter  was  heard  as  a  lecture  at  the  Lyceum 
in  1843,  as  much  of  the  "  Week"  and  of  "  Walden" 
was  so  heard  from  1838  to  1850.  By  1850  he  had 
become  a  contributor  to  several  magazines  for 
very  small  pay;  and,  through  his  acquaintance 
with  Horace  Greeley,  was  a  contributor  to  the 
"Tribune"  occasionally,  as  Margaret  Fuller  had 
been  for  some  years,  till  her  shipwreck  near  New 
York  in  1850.  Thoreau  represented  Emerson  and 
Mrs.  Channing,  Margaret's  sister,  in  the  search 
for  the  bodies  and  the  effects  at  Fire  Island,  af 
ter  that  tragedy.  Writing  to  Marcus  Spring  at 
Eagleswood,  New  Jersey  (July  23, 1850),  Emer 
son  gave  this  testimonial  to  Thoreau's  compe 
tence  at  such  crises :  — 

At  first  I  thought  I  would  go  myself,  and  see  if  I  could 
help  in  the  inquiries  at  the  wrecking-ground,  and  act 
for  the  friends.  But  I  have  prevailed  on  my  friend,  Mr. 
Thoreau,  to  go  for  me  and  all  the  friends.  He  is  the 
most  competent  person  that  could  be  selected;  and  in 
the  dispersion  of  the  Fuller  family,  and  our  uncertainty 
how  to  communicate  with  them,  he  is  authorized  by 
Mr.  Ellery  Channing  to  act  for  them  all.  He  is  pre 
pared  to  spend  a  number  of  days  in  this  object,  and  you 
must  give  him  any  guidance  or  help  you  can.  If  his 
money  does  not  hold  out,  I  shall  gladly  pay  any  drafts 

[357] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

he  may  make  on  you  in  my  name.  And  I  shall  cordially 
unite  with  you  in  any  expense  that  this  painful  calamity 
shall  make  necessary. 

Soon  after  this  first  break  in  the  circle  of  the 
Concord  Transcendentalists,  the  system  of  public 
lectures  became  so  general  in  New  England  that 
Thoreau  received  invitations  to  read  his  essays 
in  other  towns  than  Concord;  and  even  Channing 
tried  his  fortune  as  a  lecturer.  He  already  had 
tried  it  as  a  journalist  in  Boston,  Cincinnati,  and 
New  York.  Thoreau  heard  him  in  Concord,  and 
gave  this  sketch  of  it  (January  29, 1852) :  — 

I  heard  Channing  lecture  to-night.  It  was  a  bushel 
of  nuts.  Perhaps  the  most  original  lecture  I  ever  heard. 
Ever  so  unexpected,  not  to  be  foretold,  and  so  senten 
tious  that  you  could  not  look  at  him  and  take  his 
thought  at  the  same  time.  You  had  to  give  your 
undivided  attention  to  the  thoughts,  for  you  were 
not  assisted  by  set  phrases  or  modes  of  speech  inter 
vening.  It  was  all  genius,  no  talent.  For,  well  as  I 
know  C.,  he  more  than  any  man  disappoints  my  ex 
pectation.  When  I  see  him  in  the  desk,  hear  him,  I 
cannot  realize  that  I  ever  saw  him  before.  He  will  be 
strange,  unexpected,  to  his  best  acquaintance.  I  can 
not  associate  the  lecturer  with  the  companion  of  my 
walk.  The  lecture  was  full  of  wise,  acute,  and  witty 
observations,  yet  most  of  the  audience  did  not  know 
but  it  was  mere  incoherent  and  reckless  verbiage  and 
nonsense. 

[358] 


WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

This  lecture  of  Channing's  was  given  at  the  Con 
cord  Lyceum,  of  which  Thoreau  had  long  ceased 
to  be  "  Curator, "  as  he  had  been  at  the  time  of  the 
controversy  over  Phillips,  but  where  he  lectured 
gratuitously  every  winter,  giving  there,  and  at 
Salem  and  elsewhere,  chapters  from  the  record 
of  his  life  at  Walden,  before  the  book  itself 
was  printed.  Among  its  manuscript  pages  I 
found  some  that  had  served  for  his  readings  be 
fore  audiences. 

It  was  the  golden  age  of  lyceum  lectures  when  al 
most  every  town  in  New  England  had  its  lectures 
by  famous  authors.  Ellery  Channing,  who  be 
longed  to  a  family  famed  for  public  eloquence,  had 
avoided  its  practice;  but  this  winter  he  set  himself 
resolutely  to  train  for  a  popular  lecturer,  with  very 
scanty  success.  His  correspondence  with  Emer 
son,  which  I  have,  tells  the  brief  tale.  He  had 
several  lectures  written  out,  the  manuscripts  of 
which  he  left  to  me,  among  his  other  papers. 
Writing  to  Emerson  at  various  dates  in  February, 
1852  (1,  7,  10,  and  17),  he  gives  the  record  of  his 
attempts  and  failures.  He  read  in  Boston,  Provi 
dence,  Worcester,  Fall  River,  Plymouth,  and  pos 
sibly  Greenfield.  From  Providence,  where  he  had 
Charles  Newcomb  and  Mrs.  Sarah  Whitman  for 
friends,  he  wrote  Emerson:  — 

[359] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

I  am  reading  my  lectures  in  Providence  to  full  houses 
(bating  accidents) ;  the  receipts  of  my  last  being  $1,  — 
or  barring  one  Quarter,  which  was  a  twenty-cent 
piece.  I  am  going  to  Fall  River  to-day,  and  may  read 
there,  if  the  individuals  are  as  great  as  they  are  here. 
Mrs.  Whitman  told  me  at  ten  last  night,  that  lam 
exactly  like  yourself  —  like  by  the  very  gait,  air,  voice, 
turning  of  the  eyebrow,  etc.  Here's  a  flea  in  your  ear, 
with  your  one  auditor  planting  such  a  side-blow  as 
that!  To  be  a  mere  wretched  imitator  of  you  —  to 
have  written  some  bad  lectures,  and  then  read  them 
with  your  voice,  air,  tone,  etc. !  It  is  really  a  trick  of 
fortune,  or  of  fate,  I  did  not  in  the  least  look  out  for.  I 
am  usually  content  to  believe  that  I  am  not  a  mimic; 
but  this  woman  is  clear-sighted  and  superior;  and  the 
case  must  be  undoubtedly  as  she  says.  What  am  I  to  do 
about  it?  I  think  I  shall  have  to  give  up  lecturing,  and 
betake  myself  to 

"  Some  hermit's  shady  cell." 

One  more  course  on  my  account  will  teach  me  how  to 
read  lectures  —  any  lectures.  The  money  cost  is  con 
siderable;  but  never  having  been  to  college,  or  spent  a 
sixpence  on  my  education,  I  thought  I  must  do  this. 
I  had  no  way  to  learn  how  to  read  but  to  read.  To 
wait  for  an  invitation?  I  have  waited  precisely  ten 
years  now. 

Mrs.  Whitman  thinks  there  is  too  much  thought  in 
my  first  lecture.  Thoreau  did  too.  But  I  have  omitted 
almost  one  half  already.  This  seems  enough  for  a  be 
ginning. 

[  360  ] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

He  never  repeated  the  experiment. 

In  that  same  winter  Thoreau  had  a  different 
lecturer  to  deal  with  at  the  same  Lyceum,  when 
Mrs.  Elizabeth  Oakes  Smith,  in  the  last  night  of 
1851,  gave  a  discourse  on  "Womanhood."  Par 
son  Frost,  of  the  First  Parish,  a  good  man  who 
heard  her,  did  not  like  what  she  said  about  the 
clergy;  "It  was  too  transcendental  for  me." 
Thoreau  was  more  specific:  — 

The  most  important  fact  was  that  a  woman  said  it; 
in  that  respect  it  was  suggestive.  My  interview  added 
nothing  to  the  previous  impression,  rather  sub 
tracted.  She  was  a  woman  in  the  too  common  sense 
after  all.  You  had  to  substitute  courtesy  for  sense  and 
argument.  It  requires  nothing  less  than  a  chivalric 
feeling  to  sustain  a  conversation  with  a  lady.  I  carried 
her  lecture  for  her  in  my  pocket  wrapped  in  her  hand 
kerchief;  my  pocket  exhales  cologne  to  this  moment. 

A  little  before  this  (November  13)  he  had 
called  on  Miss  Mary  Emerson  (aunt  of  Waldo), 
then  seventy-seven,  and  spent  two  hours;  she  was 
very  different:  — 

The  wittiest  and  most  vivacious  woman  that  I  know, 
whom  it  is  most  profitable  to  meet,  the  least  frivolous, 
who  will  the  most  surely  provoke  to  good  conversation 
and  the  expression  of  what  is  in  you.  She  is  singular  in 
being  really  and  perseveringly  interested  to  know  what 
thinkers  think.  In  spite  of  her  own  biases,  she  can 

[361] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

entertain  a  large  thought  with  hospitality.  .  .  .  Read 
ing  from  my  manuscripts  to  her,  and  using  the  word 
"  god  "  in  perchance  a  merely  heathenish  sense,  she 
inquired  hastily  in  a  tone  of  dignified  anxiety,  "Is  that 
god  spelt  with  a  little  g?"  Fortunately  it  was.  (I  had 
brought  in  the  word  "  god  "  without  any  solemnity  of 
voice  or  connection.)  So  I  went  on  as  if  nothing  had 
happened. 

This  fruitful  winter,  also,  he  made  the  acquaint 
ance  of  a  younger  sage  whom  he  admired:  — 

They  showed  me  little  Johnny  Riordan,  as  bright  a 
boy  of  five  years  as  ever  trod  our  paths,  whom  you 
could  not  see  for  five  minutes  without  loving  and  honor 
ing  him.  He  had  on,  in  the  middle  of  January  of  the 
coldest  winter  we  have  had  for  twenty  years,  one  thick 
ness  only  of  ragged  cloth  sewed  on  to  his  pantaloons 
over  his  little  shirt,  and  shoes  with  large  holes  in  the 
toes,  into  which  the  snow  got,  as  he  was  obliged  to  con 
fess/ he  who  had  trodden  five  winters  under  his  feet. 
Thus  clad,  he  walked  a  mile  to  school  every  day,  over 
the  bleakest  of  railroad  causeways  —  all  to  get  learning 
and  warmth,  and  there  sit  at  the  head  of  his  bench. 
These  clothes,  with  countless  patches,  which  had  for 
vehicle — O  shame,  shame! — pantaloons  that  had  been 
mine,  they  whispered  to  me,  set  as  if  his  mother  had 
fitted  them  to  a  tea-kettle  first.  He  revived  to  my  mind 
the  grave  nobility  and  magnanimity  of  ancient  heroes. 

A  little  out  of  date,  but  worthy  to  be  included 
here,  are  verses  sent  in  as  a  Rhapsody  by  Thoreau 

[  362  ] 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

for  the  "  Dial,"  —  never  published,  but  endorsed 
by  Emerson,  from  whom  they  came  to  me,  "H. 
D.  Thoreau,  1843." 

The  Just  Made  Perfect 

A  stately  music  rises  on  my  ear, 
Borne  on  the  breeze  from  some  adjacent  vale; 
A  host  of  knights,  my  own  true  ancestors, 
Tread  to  the  lofty  strains  and  pass  away 
In  long  procession;  to  this  music's  sound 
The  Just  move  onward  in  deep  serried  ranks, 
With  looks  serene  of  hope,  and  gleaming  brows, 
As  if  they  were  the  temples  of  the  Day. 

Gilt  by  an  unseen  sun's  resplendent  ray 
They  firmly  move,  sure  as  the  lapse  of  Time; 
Departed  worth,  leaving  these  trivial  fields 
Where  sedate  valor  finds  no  worthy  aim, 
And  still  is  Fame  the  noblest  cause  of  all. 

Forward  they  press  and  with  exalted  eye, 

As  if  their  road,  which  seems  a  level  plain, 

Did  still  ascend,  and  were  again  subdued 

'Neath  their  proud  feet.  Forward  they  move,  and  leave 

The  sun  and  moon  and  stars  alone  behind: 

And  now,  by  the  still  fainter  strains,  I  know 

They  surely  pass;  and  soon  their  quivering  harp, 

And  faintly  clashing  cymbal,  will  have  ceased 

To  feed  my  ear. 

It  is  the  steadiest  motion  eye  hath  seen, 
A  Godlike  progress;  e'en  the  hills  and  rocks 

[  363  ] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

Do  forward  come,  so  to  congratulate 
Their  feet;  the  rivers  eddy  backward,  and 
The  waves  recurl  to  accompany  their  march. 

Onward  they  move,  like  to  the  life  of  man, 

Which  cannot  rest,  but  goes  without  delay 

Right  to  the  gates  of  Death,  not  losing  time 

In  its  majestic  tread  to  Eternity, 

As  if  Man's  blood,  a  river,  flowed  right  on 

Far  as  the  eye  could  reach,  to  the  fieart  of  hearts, 

Nor  eddied  round  about  these  complex  limbs. 

*T  is  the  slow  march  of  life,  —  I  feel  the  feet 
Of  tiny  drops  go  pattering  through  my  veins; 
Their  arteries  flow  with  an  Assyrian  pace, 
And  empires  rise  and  fall  beneath  their  stride. 

Still,  as  they  move,  flees  the  horizon  wall; 
The  low-roofed  sky  o'erarches  their  true  path; 
For  they  have  caught  at  last  the  pace  of  Heaven, 
Their  great  Commander's  true  and  timely  tread. 

Lo!  how  the  sky  before  them  is  cast  up 

Into  an  arched  road,  like  to  the  gallery 

Of  the  small  mouse  that  bores  the  meadow's  turf : 

Chapels  of  ease  swift  open  o'er  the  path, 

And  domes  continuous  span  the  lengthening  way. 

It  will  be  seen  that  this  mystical  poem  is  a 
kind  of  sequel  to  the  long  unpublished  "Ser 
vice,"  which  Goodspeed  printed  in  1902.  Why 
it  did  not  appear  in  the  "Dial"  I  cannot  say; 
there  are  defects  in  its  poetic  form,  which  may 


AUTHOR  IN  PROSE  AND  VERSE 

have  seemed  reason  enough  with  Emerson  for 
withholding  it;  or  it  may  only  have  been  over 
looked  by  him,  as  it  was  by  me  when  furnishing 
Mr.  Salt  with  the  verses  in  my  possession  for  the 
London  edition  of  Thoreau's  "Poems."  I  have 
slightly  corrected  some  of  these  defects;  and  I 
have  broken  it  up  into  stanzas  in  copying,  — 
not  always  with  deference  to  Thoreau's  punctua 
tion,  though  that  was  commonly  very  exact, 
except  that  he  overworked  the  comma,  without 
sufficient  recourse  to  the  colon  and  semicolon, 
or  the  comma  and  dash.  In  date  it  is  three  years 
later  than  "The  Service,"  and  when  Thoreau 
had  much  given  up  writing  verse.  When  he  told 
me  that  he  had  destroyed  many  verses  because 
Emerson  said  they  were  not  good,  he  then  said, 
"  Perhaps  they  were  better  than  Emerson  thought 
them."  Like  other  mystics,  Thoreau  is  hard  to 
follow  and  comprehend. 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE  JOURNEYINGS  OP  THOREAU 

THOUGH  twice  invited  by  friends  to  visit  Eu 
rope  (by  Isaac  Hecker,  when  both  were  young, 
and  by  Thomas  Cholmondeley  in  later  years), 
Thoreau  never  crossed  the  Atlantic,  nor  left  his 
native  land  except  for  a  brief  tour  in  Canada. 
Yet  he  was,  like  St.  Paul,  whom  he  did  not 
otherwise  much  resemble,  "in  journeyings  often," 
and  that  from  infancy.  Born  in  Concord,  he  re 
moved  to  Chelmsford,  then  to  Boston,  and  back 
to  Concord  Village,  before  he  was  six  years  old. 
He  remembered  the  first  time  his  infant  eyes 
rested  on  Walden  Pond,  when  he  thought  to  his 
little  self  that  he  should  like  to  live  there  —  as 
he  afterwards  did.  He  made  short  journeys  with 
his  father  and  his  brother  John  before  leaving 
Harvard  College;  and  the  brothers  planned  a 
journey  to  Kentucky  together  the  next  year  after 
graduating;  but  Henry  changed  his  mind,  and 
visited  his  cousins  in  Maine,  instead.  He  was 
then  in  search  of  some  school  to  teach,  as  Bron- 
son  AJcott  had  been,  at  a  younger  age,  when  with 
his  cousin,  William  Alcott,  he  went  sailing  off 

[366  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

from  New  Haven  to  South  Carolina.  Thoreau, 
more  wisely,  decided  to  stay  in  Concord,  and 
do  his  schoolkeeping  there  for  a  few  years;  mean 
while,  to  make  himself  more  familiar  with  the 
region  of  his  birth  before  journeying  extensively 
elsewhere.  This  he  did  in  daily  walks.  His  voy 
age  on  the  two  rivers  in  1839  was  his  first  intro 
duction  to  mountains;  for  the  two  brothers  left 
their  home-made  boat  at  Hooksett,  and  spent 
most  of  their  second  week  in  a  tour  to  Franconia 
and  the  White  Mountains  —  omitting  Monadnoc 
till  after  years,  when  Henry  several  times  camped 
there.  In  the  volume  describing  that  riparian 
romance,  he  introduced  some  notice  of  moun 
tain-ascensions  made  later — to  Wachusett,  Grey- 
lock,  and  the  Catskills,  which  he  also  mentions 
in  "Walden."  The  walk  to  Wachusett  he  had 
described  in  the  short-lived  "Boston  Miscel 
lany"  in  1842,  for  Mr.  Hale,  its  editor.  The  Cats- 
kill  Range,  Greylock,  and  the  Hoosac  Moun 
tain  he  climbed  in  1844.  Between  the  two  he  had 
made  his  first  considerable  sojourn  away  from 
Concord  —  six  months  in  New  York  City  and 
its  vicinity,  living  as  tutor  in  the  family,  at  Staten 
Island,  of  Mr.  William  Emerson.  It  was  note 
worthy  to  Thoreau  from  his  first  acquaintance 
there  with  Horace  Greeley,  and  the  elder  Henry 

[  367  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

James,  with  whom  afterwards  he  had  much  to 
do.  His  tours  on  Cape  Cod  and  in  Canada  were 
after  his  residence  by  Walden  —  from  1849  on 
ward,  for  the  Cape,  and  in  Canada  in  1850.  Many 
pages  in  the  Journal,  describing  this  Canadian 
tour,  exist  among  the  manuscripts  owned  by  Mr. 
Bixby,  but  were  omitted  by  Sophia  and  Chan- 
ning  in  making  up  the  printed  record.  Some  omis 
sions,  but  not  so  many,  were  made  in  editing  the 
"  Cape  Cod";  but  those  were  largely  left  out  by 
Thoreau  himself,  in  shortening  his  papers  for 
"Putnam's  Magazine."  Channing  had  visited 
the  Cape  before  Thoreau,  but  also  went  with 
him  on  two  of  Thoreau's  visits  there  —  in  1849 
and  1855;  in  both  1850  and  1857,  Thoreau  went 
alone.  Of  Cape  Cod  he  made  a  more  extended 
study  than  of  any  of  his  mountains;  though  not 
more  than  of  the  Maine  woods.  His  longest 
visit  to  Monadnoc  was  in  the  late  summer  of 
1860,  before  the  attack  of  bronchitis  came  on 
which  never  really  left  him  until  it  occasioned 
his  death.  Between  these  dates  (December  3, 
1860,  and  May,  1862),  he  made  the  longest  of 
his  journeys,  to  Minnesota  and  return,  in  which 
he  kept  no  regular  journal,  and  had  no  time 
afterward  to  write  out  his  notes  in  full.  Of  this 
experience,  therefore,  there  is  no  complete  rec- 

[368  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

ord,  the  only  one  accessible  being  the  volume 
which  I  edited  for  the  Bibliophile  Society  in 
1905,  from  papers  in  Mr.  Bixby's  possession  (by 
purchase  from  Mr.  Russell,  of  Worcester)  or  in 
mine.  The  journey  extended  from  May  11  to 
July  10,  1861,  two  months,  and  we  find  in  the 
later  Journal  a  few  entries  concerning  it.  For 
companion  on  this  latest  tour  he  was  to  have 
been  accompanied,  as  on  so  many  before,  by 
Ellery  Channing;  whose  courage,  his  spirits,  or 
his  money  gave  out  at  the  last,  and  Channing 
failed  to  meet  him  at  Niagara,  as  he  had  given 
Thoreau  to  understand  he  might  do.  His  friend 
was  much  disappointed,  and  had  to  fall  back  on 
the  companionship  of  young  Horace  Mann,  a 
student  of  natural  science,  modest  and  good- 
natured,  but  not  very  conversible,  and  without 
the  lively  wit  and  Shakespearean  versatility  of 
Channing,  in  which  Thoreau  delighted  and  found 
refreshment. 

The  Maine  woods  were  another  serious  propo 
sition,  like  Cape  Cod  and  Monadnoc,  and  in 
volved  more  than  one  visit.  His  first  one  was  in 
May,  1838,  but  did  not  include  camping  in  the 
forest,  as  in  later  years.  His  aunt  Mrs.  Billings 
(Elizabeth  Thoreau)  had  died  years  before, 
leaving  in  Bangor  daughters  who  had  married 

[  369  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

into  the  families  of  Thatcher  and  Lowell;  and 
these  relatives  frequently  interchanged  visits.  I 
met  some  of  each  family  in  Concord,  during  the 
residence  of  the  Thoreaus  there,  from  1855  to 
1873,  and  one  of  the  Thatchers  was  the  executor 
of  the  wills  of  Sophia  and  of  Maria  Thoreau.  I 
met  him  at  the  grave  of  Sophia  in  Concord  in 
October,  1876.  Of  Henry's  first  visit  in  Bangor 
in  1838  some  mention  has  been  made.  He  had 
been  there  again  before  I  made  his  acquaintance 
in  1855,  and  he  printed  accounts  of  two  excur 
sions,  in  1846  to  Ktaadn,  and  in  1853  to  Chesun- 
cook.  The  first  was  placed  in  Horace  Greeley's 
hands  for  sale,  and  appeared  in  the  "Union 
Magazine"  of  1848 — putting  in  Thoreau's  pocket 
fifty  dollars,  and  leaving  to  Greeley  twenty-five 
dollars  for  his  brokerage  in  selling  it  and  getting 
paid;  "the  latter"  Greeley  wrote,  "being  by 
far  the  most  difficult  part  of  the  business."  He 
had  sold  other  essays  for  Thoreau  to  Graham  and 
to  Sartain,  magazine-publishers,  and  his  twenty- 
five  dollars  covered  the  whole  transaction.  The 
Chesuncook  paper  began  in  the  "Atlantic"  in 
1858;  a  third  essay,  "The  Allegash  and  East 
Branch,"  described  his  last  excursion,  in  which 
he  was  accompanied,  in  1857,  by  Edward  Hoar, 
brother  of  the  Senator,  who  is  said  to  have  been 

[  370  ] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

his  comrade  in  the  excursion  of  1844  up  the  Mus- 
ketaquid,  which  resulted  so  unluckily  in  the  forest 
fire  of  Concord  on  Town-Meeting  day,  and  sadly 
damaged  Thoreau's  reputation  among  the  owners 
of  Concord  woodlots,  of  which  he  surveyed  and 
mapped  so  many  afterwards.  He  never  published 
his  account  of  this  adventure,  but  carefully  wrote 
it  out,  and  it  will  be  found  in  my  next  chapter, 
with  explanations. 

Thoreau's  visit  to  Fire  Island  in  1850,  to  col 
lect  what  could  be  found  of  the  effects  of  Mar 
garet  Fuller  (the  Marchioness  d'Ossoli)  and  her 
Italian  husband,  took  him,  among  other  odd 
places  to  Patchogue,  where  he  found  the  drunken 
Dutchman  so  felicitously  described  by  him  in 
Channing's  biography.  He  did  not  visit  Cape 
Ann  till  September,  1858,  spending  three  days 
in  that  region;  earlier  in  the  same  year,  while 
lecturing  at  Lynn,  he  heard  the  evidence  in  favor 
of  the  sea-serpent  seen  at  Nahant  in  1819-20.  In 
1857  he  had  heard  from  his  friend  Marston  Watson 
at  Plymouth  the  story  of  the  sea-serpent  seen  by 
Daniel  Webster  in  returning  from  Manomet  to 
Marshfield,  but  which  Webster  would  not  allow  to 
be  related,  lest  he  "  should  never  hear  the  last  of  it." 
i  Early  readers  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly"  will 
recall  that  Thoreau  was  a  contributor  to  its  first 

[371  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

volume;  but  there,  and  in  the  second  volume, 
completing  the  Chesuncook  paper,  he  ceased,  and 
did  not  reappear  for  years.  In  the  ninth  volume, 
a  few  weeks  after  his  death  in  1862,  his  pleasing 
essay  on  "Walking"  came  out,  followed  by  other 
essays  in  the  tenth,  twelfth,  and  fourteenth  vol 
umes.  Why  this  long  silence  at  his  most  pro 
ductive  period?  Because  he  refused  to  send  his 
manuscripts  to  be  docked  and  mutilated  by  J.  R. 
Lowell,  the  first  editor  of  the  "Atlantic."  In  his 
"Chesuncook,"  eulogizing  the  pine  tree  of  the 
Maine  woods,  he  had  written,  "It  is  as  immor 
tal  as  I  am,  and  perchance  will  go  to  as  high  a 
heaven,  there  to  tower  above  me  still."  What  he 
meant  by  this  is  hard  to  say;  but  Lowell  struck  it 
out,  exercising  a  similar  discretion  to  that  which 
Emerson  had  used  in  omitting  portions  of  Tho- 
reau's  "Winter  Walk"  in  the  "Dial."  But  the 
author  objected  to  Lowell's  excision,  and  would 
send  nothing  more  to  that  editor,  whom  probably 
he  had  come  to  dislike  for  other  sins  of  commis 
sion  or  omission  —  as  in  the  admission  to  the 
"Atlantic"  of  Charles  Norton's  wholly  inade 
quate  notice  of  John  Brown,  in  1860.  In  1862 
Thoreau  lay  slowly  dying  in  his  mother's  house 
at  Concord,  and  the  magazine  had  a  new  editor, 
J.  T.  Fields,  the  publisher,  who  saw  the  merits 

[372] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

of  this  scrupulous  man  of  genius  as  an  attraction 
for  his  magazine. 

The  same  year  that  he  visited  Chesuncook 
(1853)  he  first  visited  the  Wayside  Inn  (Howe 
Tavern),  then  still  open  as  a  tavern,  as  it  was  in 
1851  when  I  was  first  there;  and  Haverhill,  with 
its  old  "houses  of  refuge"  from  Indian  attack. 
In  1856  he  made  two  or  three  noteworthy  jour 
neys,  between  September  5  and  12  to  Vermont 
(Brattleboro  and  Bellows  Falls),  and  to  Wai- 
pole,  New  Hampshire,  where  the  Alcotts  were 
then  living  for  a  year,  and  where  he  learned  the 
story  of  Colonel  Bellows,  from  whom,  he  says, 
most  of  the  Walpole  people  are  descended.  This 
was  chiefly  a  botanical  excursion,  and  he  enu 
merates  some  fifty  plants  of  which  he  obtained 
fresh  specimens,  and  fifteen  pressed  specimens, 
given  him  by  the  Misses  Brown,  of  Brattleboro. 
He  ascended  the  Fall  Mountain  at  Bellows  Falls, 
and  examined  the  celebrated  falls  in  the  Connec 
ticut,  beneath  it,  quoting  what  the  Tory  histo 
rian  of  Connecticut  says  of  the  river  there.  This 
book  of  Peters,  full  of  fables  and  prejudices, 
pleased  him  by  its  style,  and  he  says  of  it:  — 

It  did  me  good  to  read  the  wholesale,  hearty  state 
ments  of  Peters  —  strong,  living,  human  speech,  so 
much  better  than  the  emasculated  modern  histories, 

[373] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

like  Bancroft's  and  the  rest,  cursed  with  a  style.  I 
would  rather  read  such  histories,  though  every  sen 
tence  were  a  falsehood,  than  our  dull  emasculated  re 
ports  which  bear  the  name  of  histories.  The  former, 
having  a  human  breadth  and  interest  behind  them, 
are  nearer  to  nature  and  to  truth  after  all.  The  his 
torian  is  required  to  feel  a  human  interest  in  his  sub 
ject,  and  to  so  express  it. 

After  this  excursion  into  literary  criticism, 
Thoreau,  as  always,  picks  up  pertinent  facts 
which  will  sometime  be  of  use  to  somebody, 
though  perhaps  never  to  himself.  After  reaching 
the  temporary  home  of  the  Alcotts  he  sets  down 
this  piece  of  information:  — 

Rode  the  last  mile  into  Walpole  with  a  lumberer, 
who  said  that  when  he  commenced  operations  at  Bel 
lows  Falls  he  thought  there  was  not  more  than  100,000 
feet  of  lumber  there,  but  they  had  already  got  out  four 
millions.  He  also  imported  some  of  those  masts  from 
Canada  West  that  I  had  seen  go  through  Concord  to 
Boston.  They  were  rafted  along  Lake  Erie  (Mr.  Dorr l 

1  This  was  Captain  Dorr,  of  the  steamboat  service  on  Lake  Erie, 
whose  son  was  a  pupil  of  mine,  and  who  boarded  at  Mrs.  Thoreau's, 
where  his  father  visited  him.  In  the  late  summer  of  1856,  on  my 
excursion  to  Niagara,  Chicago,  Iowa,  and  Nebraska  City,  on  the 
business  of  Kansas  freedom,  Captain  Dorr  politely  escorted  me 
from  Buffalo  to  Niagara,  sitting  beside  me  in  the  train,  at  my  left, 
and  emphasizing  his  remarks  by  jogging  my  ribs  with  his  right 
elbow.  Years  after,  at  the  funeral  of  Garrison  in  Roxbury,  the  poet 
Whittier,  in  the  pew  at  my  left,  repeated  this  gesture  —  an  old- 
fashioned  Yankee  trait. 

[  374  ] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

of  Buffalo  afterward  told  me  that  he  did  this  part  on 
the  lake  with  steamers, — merely  running  an  inch  chain 
through  the  butt  of  each  log,  and  fastening  the  ends  to 
a  boom,  which  surrounded  the  whole,  leaving  the  small 
ends  to  play  in  the  lake) ,  and  in  small  rafts  by  canal  to 
Albany,  and  thence  by  railroad  via  Rutland  to  Port 
land  or  Boston,  for  the  navy;  it  cost  only  one  third 
more  to  get  them  to  the  seacoast  from  Canada  than 
from  Bellows  Falls.  Remembering  the  difficulty  in  old 
times  of  loading  one  of  these  masts  in  New  Hampshire 
for  the  King's  Navy,  this  seemed  to  me  the  greatest 
triumph  of  the  railroad. 

Thus  did  our  botanist  pass,  in  a  few  pages  of 
his  Journal,  from  Linnaeus  and  Gerard  and  the 
writers  of  modern  history  to  the  practical  achieve 
ments  of  lumberers,  timber-raftsmen,  and  rail 
road  hands,  —  men  with  whom  he  loved  to  talk 
better  than  with  the  men  pragmatically  learned, 
which  Lowell  was,  for  all  his  wit  and  poesy. 

The  Vermont  Botanical  Excursion 

This  visit  to  Brattleboro  in  September,  1856, 
is  one  of  the  few  distinctly  botanical  trips  away 
from  Concord,  of  which  I  find  a  definite  record 
and  result;  but  it  was  combined  with  a  visit  to 
friends  who  were  also  botanists.  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Addison  Brown,  of  Brattleboro,  were  of  the  liberal 
reforming  element  in  New  England;  their  daugh- 

[375] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

ter,  Miss  Frances  Brown,  I  had  met  at  the  house 
of  friends  in  Boston;  she  was,  I  think,  one  of 
the  pupils  of  George  B.  Emerson,  a  cousin  of 
the  Concord  Emersons,  and  a  good  naturalist, 
as  well  as  a  good  teacher,  in  Pemberton  Square, 
Boston.  Rev.  John  W.  Brown,  one  of  the  pioneers 
in  Kansas,  and  the  first  Unitarian  minister  in 
Lawrence,  Kansas,  was  a  kinsman  of  the  Brattle- 
boro  family.  The  younger  Miss  Brown,  now  Mrs. 
Dunton,  of  Sheboygan,  Wisconsin,  in  a  letter  of 
1908,  said:  — 

Henry  Thoreau  was  the  guest  of  Rev.  Addison 
Brown's  family  in  their  house  on  Chase  Street.  At 
that  time  none  of  the  family  had  met  him,  but  my  father 
had  corresponded  with  him,  and  had  invited  him  to  our 
home,  if  he  should  come  to  Brattleboro.  When  he  did 
(September  5, 1856)  it  was  to  look  up  an  Aster  which  did 
not  grow  in  Concord.  He  struck  me  as  being  very  odd, 
very  wise,  and  exceedingly  observing.  He  roamed  about 
the  country  at  will,  and  I  was  fortunate  enough  to  be 
his  companion  on  a  walk  to  our  mountain.  I  was  well 
acquainted  with  the  flora,  and  could  meet  him  under- 
standingly  thereupon;  but  was  abashed  at  the  numer 
ous  questions  he  asked,  about  all  sorts  of  things,  to 
which  I  could  only  reply, "  I  do  not  know."  It  appealed 
to  my  sense  of  humor  that  a  person  with  such  a  fund  of 
knowledge  should  seek  information  from  a  young  girl 
like  myself;  but  I  could  not  see  that  he  had  any  fun  in 
him.  The  only  question  I  now  recall  is  this:  as  we  stood 

[376] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

on  the  summit  of  Mount  Wantastiquet,  he  fixed  his 
earnest  gaze  on  a  distant  point  in  the  landscape  [per 
haps  Mount  Ascutney],  asking,  "How  far  is  it  in  a 
bee-line  to  that  spot?" 

Thoreau's  own  comment  was  more  specific: — 

This  mountain  is  the  most  remarkable  feature  here. 
The  village  is  peculiar  from  the  nearness  of  the  prim 
itive  wood  and  this  mountain.  Within  three  rods  of 
Brown's  house  was  excellent  botanical  ground  on  the 
side  of  a  primitive  wooded  hillside.  Above  all  is  this 
everlasting  mountain,  forever  lowering  over  the  vil 
lage,  shortening  the  day  and  wearing  a  misty  cap  each 
morning.  Its  top  is  covered  with  wood.  We  saw 
Ascutney,  between  forty  and  fifty  miles  up  the  Con 
necticut  River;  but  not  Monadnoc,  on  account  of 
woods. 

Mrs.  Dunton  adds:  — 

Among  my  cherished  possessions  are  three  letters 
from  him.  The  first  (March,  1857),  on  sending  me  the 
Climbing  Fern,  gave  directions  for  opening  and  mount 
ing  it,  and  added,  "Climbing  Fern  would  have  been  a 
pretty  name  for  some  delicate  Indian  maiden."  The 
second  was  to  thank  me  for  a  box  of  Mayflowers  (Epi- 
gcea  repens) .  "I  think  they  amount  to  more  than  those 
that  grow  in  Concord.  Your  Bloodroot,  too  (which  we 
have  not  at  all),  had  not  suffered  in  the  least;  part  of 
it  is  transferred  to  my  sister's  garden.  Preserving  one 
splendid  vase-full,  I  distributed  the  rest  of  the  May 
flowers  among  my  neighbors,  Mrs.  R.  W.  Emerson, 

[  377  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Mrs.  Ripley,  Mr.  Edward  Hoar,  and  others.    They 
have  sweetened  a  good  part  of  the  town  ere  this." 

Having  reached  home,  September  11,  Thoreau 
says:  — 

No  view  I  have  had  of  the  Connecticut  Valley,  at 
Brattleboro  or  Walpole,  is  equal  to  that  of  the  Concord 
from  Nawshawtuct.  Here  is  a  more  interesting  hori 
zon,  more  variety  and  richness.  Up  there  it  is  nothing 
but  river- valley  and  hills.  Here  there  is  so  much  more, 
that  we  have  forgotten  we  live  in  a  valley. 

He  then  in  his  Journal  copies  the  names  of 
forty-seven  plants  collected  by  him  on  this  excur 
sion,  besides  fifteen  pressed  specimens  given  him 
by  the  Brown  family.  In  May,  1859,  thanking 
Mrs.  Dunton  for  another  box  of  Mayflowers, 
Thoreau  said :  — 

It  chanced  that  on  the  very  day  they  arrived,  while 
surveying  in  the  next  town  [Acton],  I  found  more  of 
this  flower  than  I  had  ever  seen  hereabouts,  and  I  have 
therefore  named  a  certain  path  "Mayflower  Path"  on 
my  plan.  But  a  botanist's  experience  is  full  of  coin 
cidences.  If  you  think  much  about  some  flower  which 
you  never  saw,  you  ane  pretty  sure  to  find  it  some  day, 
actually  growing  near  by  you.  In  the  long  run  we  find 
what  we  expect.  We  shall  be  fortunate,  then,  if  we  ex 
pect  great  things.1 

1  Copied  from  the  yearly  Bulletin  of  the  Vermont  Botanical 
Club  for  1908. 

[  378  ] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

I  was  dining  every  day  with  the  Thoreau  fam 
ily  in  this  September,  and  heard  Thoreau's  ac 
count  of  his  Vermont  visit  when  he  returned  just 
before  the  middle  of  September;  and  far  more 
about  the  Eagleswood  and  New  York  visits  soon 
after,  which  are  described  in  the  "Familiar  Let 
ters."  At  this  period  Thoreau  seemed  to  be  in 
the  best  health  in  which  I  had  ever  seen  him,  and 
was  very  active,  as  he  was  in  both  these  consid 
erable  journeys. 

The  last  excursion  or  journey  in  1856  was  far 
more  important,  and  kept  Thoreau  away  from 
his  beloved  Concord  a  month,  from  October  24, 
when  he  started  for  Worcester,  to  November  25, 
when  he  got  home  from  Eagleswood  and  Perth 
Amboy,  New  York,  Brooklyn,  and  Greeley's 
country  residence  at  Chappaqua.  In  this  month 
he  had  surveyed  and  mapped  Marcus  Spring's 
large  estate  at  Eagleswood;  had  lectured  to 
the  guests  and  tenants  there;  had  renewed  his 
old  acquaintance  with  Greeley,  become  intimate 
with  Walt  Whitman,  seen  Barnum's  Museum, 
and  heard  an  opera  in  company  with  Greeley. 
Little  mention  of  this  adventure  appears  in  the 
Journals,  but  the  story  was  told  (to  me)  on  his 
return,  and  in  his  "Letters." 

These  excursions,  though  full  of  interest  to 
[  379  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

Thoreau,  and  adding  in  many  ways  to  his  vast 
stock  of  knowledge  and  to  the  growing  circle 
of  his  friends,  were  begrudged  by  him,  unless 
they  were  accompanied  by  invitations  to  lec 
ture  or  to  follow  up  his  later  pursuit  of  land- 
surveying.  In  visiting  Plymouth  in  October, 
1854,  he  both  lectured  for  his  friend  Watson  and 
surveyed  his  park  and  garden.  He  had  visited 
Marcus  Spring  in  1850,  as  one  of  the  most  inti 
mate  friends  of  Margaret  Fuller,  —  as  also  was 
Horace  Greeley.  In  November,  1856,  Mr.  Alcott 
was  with  the  Springs  at  Eagleswood,  and  hold 
ing  conversations  there,  at  a  school  in  which  the 
Springs  were  interested,  and  which  was  taught 
by  an  acquaintance  of  mine  in  college,  who  was 
the  class  poet  of  his  class  at  Harvard,  that  of 
1853,  of  which  Dr.  C.  W.  Eliot  was  a  member. 
Mr.  Spring,  in  October,  wrote  to  Concord,  inviting 
Thoreau  to  be  his  guest  at  Eagleswood  to  give 
lectures  and  survey  and  map  the  two  hundred 
acres  of  land  in  which  he  was  an  owner,  and 
which  had  been  the  seat  of  a  Community,  in  the 
years  when  Brook  Farm  flourished  and  faded 
and  Fruitlands  failed.  Reaching  New  York, 
by  way  of  Worcester  and  Norwich,  too  late  for 
the  steamer  running  to  Perth  Amboy,  thirty 
miles  from  New  York,  in  the  morning,  he  spent 

[  380  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

that  part  of  the  day  calling  at  the  "Tribune" 
office,  the  Astor  Library  and  the  studio  of  an 
English  artist,  Bellew,  who  had  visited  him  in 
Concord.  He  reached  the  landing  at  Perth  Am- 
boy  at  5  P.M.  on  a  Saturday,  and  rode  to  Eagles- 
wood  along  with  Miss^  Elizabeth  Peabody,  who 
had  been  visiting  there.  He  said  in  a  letter  of 
November  1,  to  his  sister:  — 

Perth  Amboy  is  a  city,  about  as  big  as  Concord;  and 
Eagleswood  is  a  village  a  mile  and  a  quarter  southwest 
of  it,  on  the  Raritan  Bay  side.  It  is  a  queer  place. 
There  is  one  large,  long,  stone  building,  which  cost 
some  $40,000,  a  few  shops  and  offices,  an  old  farm 
house,  and  Mr.  Spring's  perfectly  private  residence, 
within  twenty  rods  of  the  main  building.  Its  central 
fact  is  Mr.  Theodore  Weld's  school,  recently  estab 
lished,  around  which  various  other  things  revolve. 

Mr.  Weld  was  the  well-known  anti-slavery 
orator,  who  had  married  one  of  the  Grimke  sis 
ters  from  South  Carolina,  and  was  intimate  with 
J.  G.  Birney,  a  Kentucky  planter  who  had  freed 
his  slaves  at  Huntsville,  in  Alabama,  and  was 
the  anti-slavery  candidate  for  President  in  1844, 
—  thereby  preventing  New  York  from  voting 
for  Henry  Clay,  and  giving  the  election  to  Polk, 
the  pro-slavery  candidate,  who  brought  on  the 
Mexican  War.  Mr.  Birney  lived  at  Eagleswood; 

[381  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

so  did  Mrs.  Spring's  father,  Arnold  Buffum,  an 
uncle  of  my  friend  Dr.  Pliny  Earle,  Rhode  Is 
land  and  Massachusetts  Quakers.  Mrs.  Caroline 
Kirkland,  an  author  of  some  distinction  then, 
had  just  come  to  live  at  Eagleswood,  and  Gerrit 
Smith  and  his  family  visited  there;  while  the 
Greeleys  were  friendly,  though  then  living  at  Chap- 
paqua,  instead  of  at  their  comfortable  old  home 
in  a  suburb  of  New  York,  where  MargaretFuller 
had  lived  with  them. 

It  was  a  convenient  station  between  New 
York  and  Philadelphia,  to  which  latter  city,  then 
Quakerish,  Thoreau  went  to  lecture,  with  no 
marked  success,  while  visiting  Mr.  Spring.  He 
also  made  several  visits  to  New  York  and  Brook 
lyn,  in  one  of  which  he  called  on  Whitman,  in 
company  with  Mr.  Alcott.  On  Saturday,  No 
vember  8,  they  had  visited  Greeley  at  his  farm, 
thirty-six  miles  north  of  New  York;  on  the  9th, 
Sunday,  they  heard  Henry  Ward  Beecher  in  his 
Brooklyn  church;  and  on  the  10th  they  found 
Whitman  at  his  mother's  in  Brooklyn.1  Mr. 
Alcott  had  seen  him  before;  and  both  of  them 

1  From  Mr.  Alcott's  diary  I  have  taken  a  more  detailed  sketch  of 
these  hours  with  Thoreau  and  Greeley  and  Whitman  in  the  early 
days  of  that  busy  November;  five  months  after  which  they  were 
again  together  at  Brooklawn,  Daniel  Ricketson's  country  house  in 
New  Bedford. 

[382] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

spoke  of  him  to  me,  on  their  return  to  Concord, 
with  some  enthusiasm,  as  Emerson  had  done  the 
year  before,  when  he  gave  me  my  copy  of  the 
first  edition  of  "Leaves  of  Grass."  Years  after, 
Emerson  said  in  his  funeral  eulogy  on  Thoreau 
(which  I  heard),  "Three  men  have  of  late  years 
strongly  impressed  Mr.  Thoreau,  —  John  Brown 
(in  1857  and  1859),  his  Indian  guide  in  Maine, 
Joe  Polis  (1857),  and  a  third  person,  not  known 
to  this  audience."  He  meant  Whitman,  whom 
Thoreau  only  met,  I  think,  on  this  Brooklyn 
occasion;  though  they  may  also  have  met  at 
Boston  when  Whitman  was  there  in  the  spring 
of  1860.  Thoreau  thus  described  him,  a  week 
after,  to  Harrison  Blake:  — 

He  is  apparently  the  greatest  democrat  the  world 
has  seen.  Kings  and  aristocracy  go  by  the  board  at 
once,  as  they  have  long  deserved  to.  A  remarkably 
strong  though  coarse  nature,  of  a  sweet  disposition, 
and  much  prized  by  his  friends.  Though  peculiar  and 
rough  in  his  exterior,  he  is  essentially  a  gentleman.  I 
am  still  somewhat  in  a  quandary  about  him.  I  feel  that 
he  is  essentially  strange  to  me,  at  any  rate;  but  I  am 
surprised  by  the  sight  of  him.  He  is  very  broad,  but, 
as  I  have  said,  not  fine. 

He  £aid  that  I  misapprehended  him.  I  am  not  quite 
sure  that  I  do.  He  told  us  that  he  loved  to  ride  up  and 
down  Broadway  all  day  on  an  omnibus,  sitting  beside 

[383] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

the  driver,  listening  to  the  roar  of  the  carts,  and  some 
times  gesticulating  and  declaiming  Homer  at  the  top 
of  his  voice.  He  has  long  been  an  editor  and  writer  for 
the  newspapers  —  was  editor  of  the  "New  Orleans 
Crescent"  once;  but  now  has  no  employment  but  to 
read  and  write  in  the  forenoon  and  walk  in  the  after 
noon,  like  all  the  rest  of  the  scribbling  gentry. 

November  7,  Thoreau  came  in  from  Eagles- 
wood  to  Mr.  Alcott's  room  at  15  Laight  Street 
in  New  York,  and  there  met  one  of  Whitman's 
friends,  John  Swinton,  of  whom  he  learned  some 
thing  about  Whitman.  Mrs.  Botta,  who  then 
held  receptions  in  New  York,  which  Emerson 
attended  with  pleasure,  had  invited  Thoreau  with 
Alcott  for  that  day,  but  Henry  declined.  He  slept 
there  that  Friday  night  as  Alcott's  guest,  and  the 
next  day,  Saturday,  the  two  met  Greeley  at  the 
Harlem  station,  and  went  by  train  with  him  to 
his  farm,  where  they  spent  the  day;  but  came 
back  to  New  York  at  evening,  accompanied  by 
Greeley  and  Miss  Alice  Gary,  the  poet,  with 
whom,  no  doubt,  Thoreau  went  to  the  opera. 
Sunday  morning  they  crossed  the  ferry  to  hear 
Beecher  at  his  Plymouth  Church.  As  usual,  they 
found  it  crowded.  Alcoit  says :  — 

It  was  a  spectacle;  so  was  himself,  the  Preacher,  — 
if  preacher  there  be  anywhere  now  in  pulpits.  His 

[384] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

hearers  had  to  weep,  had  to  laugh,  under  his  potent 
magnetism;  but  his  doctrine  of  justice  to  all  men,  bond 
and  free,  was  grand.  Thoreau  called  it  pagan,  but  I 
pronounced  it  good,  —  very  good,  —  the  best  sight  I 
had  witnessed  for  many  a  day,  and  hopeful  for  the  com 
ing  time. 

They  dined  at  Mrs.  Manning's,  where  was  a 
young  lady  curious  to  see  Thoreau.  Sunday  af 
ternoon  they  called  on  Whitman,  but,  finding 
him  out,  they  "got  all  they  could  from  his  mother, 
a  stately,  sensible  matron,  believing  absolutely 
in  her  Walter,  and  telling  us  how  good  he  was, 
and  how  wise  as  a  boy;  how  his  two  sisters  and 
four  brothers  loved  him,  and  still  take  counsel 
of  him."  She  said  Walt  would  be  glad  to  see  them 
Monday  forenoon;  when,  accompanied  by  Mrs. 
Tyndale,  of  Philadelphia,  they  sat  with  him  for 
two  hours.  Thoreau  said  afterward:  — 

I  did  not  get  far  with  him  in  conversation,  for  two 
others  were  present.  His  book  is  wonderfully  like  the 
Orientals;  though  when  I  inquired  if  he  had  read  them, 
he  said,  "No;  tell  me  about  them."  Answering  some 
remark  of  his  aboutAmerican  politics,  I  chanced  to  say 
that  I  did  not  think  much  of  the  present  America,  nor  of 
politics , — which  may  have  been  a  damper  to  him .  Since 
seeing  him  I  am  not  disturbed  by  any  brag  or  egotism 
in  "Leaves  of  Grass."  He  may  turn  out  the  least  of  a 
braggart  of  any  of  us,  with  a  better  right  to  be  confident. 

[385  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Thoreau  seems,  too,  to  have  thought  that  Em 
erson  made  rather  too  much  of  Whitman's  print 
ing  the  Concord  letter  in  his  second  edition, 
a  copy  of  which  he  gave  to  his  visitors.  Tho- 
reau  disliked  two  or  three  pieces  in  it  which  he 
found  disagreeable,  but  on  the  whole  found  it 
"very  brave  and  American,  after  whatever  de 
ductions." 

That  seems  to  have  been  the  verdict  of  the 
past  sixty  years. 

Thoreau's  next  considerable  journeying  was 
around  New  Bedford,  where  he  met  his  Concord 
friends  Alcott  and  Channing,  April  2,  1857,  and 
remained  in  that  region  until  April  15,  the  guest 
of  Daniel  Ricketson,  at  Brooklawn,  where  he 
sang  "Tom  Bowline"  and  danced  to  the  music 
of  Mrs.  Ricketson's  piano. 

In  the  summer  of  1857  he  went  on  what  he 
regarded  as  his  most  valuable  journey  to  and 
through  the  Maine  woods,  because  in  it  he  had 
the  company  of  Edward  Hoar,  an  elder  brother 
of  the  Senator,  and  a  former  resident  in  California, 
and  he  made  the  acquaintance  of  his  most  ac 
complished  Indian,  Joe  Polis,  of  whom  he  has 
much  to  say  in  his  published  account,  and  some 
few  things  also  in  those  parts  of  the  Journal  which 
did  not  get  into  the  magazine  or  the  volume.  I 


DAMEL   RICKETSON 

In  1862 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

was  dining  daily  at  the  table  of  Mrs.  Thoreau 
when  this  excursion  was  planned,  and  heard  it 
much  discussed.  The  summer  visit  to  Cape  Cod 
had  been  for  Henry's  health,  more  than  for  sight 
seeing.  He  had  visited  Plymouth  and  Clark's 
Island  on  his  way  to  Sandwich  and  the  Cape, 
and  was  improved  by  his  journey.  He  therefore 
sent  the  following  letter  to  a  cousin  at  Bangor:  — 

CONCORD,  July  11,  1857. 
DEAR  COUSIN, — 

Finding  myself  somewhat  stronger  than  for  two  or 
three  years  past,  I  am  bent  on  making  a  leisurely  and 
economical  excursion  into  your  woods ;  say  in  a  canoe, 
with  two  companions,  through  the  Moosehead  to  the 
Allegash  Lakes;  and  possibly  down  the  river  to  the 
French  settlement,  and  so  homeward  by  whatever 
course  we  may  prefer. 

I  wish  to  go  at  an  earlier  season  than  formerly,  or 
within  ten  days,  notwithstanding  the  flies,  etc.  and  we 
should  want  a  month  at  our  disposal. 

I  have  just  written  to  Mr.  Loomis  (one  of  the  Cam- 
bridgeport  men  who  went  through  Bangor  last  year  and 
called  on  you),  inviting  him  to  be  one  of  the  party;  and 
for  a  third  have  thought  of  your  son  Charles,  who  has 
had  some  fresh  as  well  as  salt  water  experience. 

The  object  of  this  note  is  to  ask  if  he  would  like  to 
go,  and  you  would  like  to  have  him  go,  on  such  an 
excursion.  If  so,  I  will  come  to  Bangor,  spend  a  day  or 
two  with  you,  on  my  way,  buy  a  canoe  &c.,  and  be 
ready  by  the  time  my  other  man  comes  along. 

[387] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

If  Charles  cannot  go,  we  may  find  another  man  here, 
or  possibly  take  an  Indian.  A  friend  of  mine  would 
like  to  accompany  me,  but  I  think  he  has  neither 
woodcraft  nor  strength  enough. 

Please  let  me  hear  from  you  as  soon  as  possible. 

Father  has  arrived  safe  and  sound,  and  he  says  the 
better  for  his  journey;  though  he  no  longer  has  his 
Bangor  appetite.  He  intends  writing  to  you. 
Yours  truly, 

HENRY  D.  THOREAU. 

I  had  met  the  Lowells  and  Mr.  Loomis  at  Con 
cord,  and  Henry's  father,  as  appears  from  this 
letter,  had  lately  returned  from  his  last  visit  to 
his  Bangor  nephews  and  nieces,  Thatchers  and 
Lowells  and  their  children,  descendants  of  his 
elder  sister  Elizabeth,  who  had  long  been  dead.1 
At  this  time  only  his  sisters  Jane  and  Maria  were 
living;  and  they  spent  much  time  in  Concord, 
though  their  home  was  in  Cambridgeport,  where 

1  Her  daughters  were  living.  One  of  them  had  married  a 
Thatcher,  of  the  Admiral's  family,  and  her  sons  were  intimate 
with  the  Concord  family.  Mr.  Loomis  was  a  mathematician, 
astronomer,  and  poet,  who  had  married  Miss  Wilder,  of  Cam 
bridgeport,  and  she  was  the  mother  of  a  daughter  Mabel,  now  the 
wife  of  Professor  Todd,  of  Amherst  College,  and  herself  an  artist, 
author,  and  astronomer.  I  had  met  him  and  her  at  the  Thoreau 
house,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Loomis  took  tea  there,  with  Ellery  Chan- 
ning,  the  evening  after  Henry's  funeral  at  the  Concord  Church. 
Mr.Loomis  also  arrived  in  Concord  accidentally  the  day  of  Sophia's 
funeral  in  October,  1876.  Her  letters  show  her  beautiful  spirit,  and 
that  of  her  aunt  Maria. 

[388] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

the  family  of  Rev.  John  Wilder  resided.  Mr. 
Loomis  soon  after  married  a  daughter  of  Mr. 
Wilder,  and  their  daughter  is  the  accomplished 
Mrs.  Mabel  Loomis  Todd,  of  Amherst,  who  as 
a  child  was  a  favorite  of  Sophia  Thoreau,  and  of 
her  aunt  Maria,  as  their  letters  show.  The  per 
son  whom  Thoreau  thought  not  strong  enough 
for  the  excursion  I  take  to  have  been  Harrison 
Blake,  who  in  this  same  year  did  join  Thoreau 
and  Edward  Hoar  in  a  sojourn  at  Mount  Wash 
ington,  of  which  much  is  said  in  the  "Familiar 
Letters."  There  were  also  one  or  two  trips  to 
Monadnoc  with  Blake  and  with  Channing,  of 
which  the  poet  had  much  to  say  in  his  volume 
"The  Wanderer,"  and  which  Thoreau  describes 
in  the  later  Journals. 

The  Mississippi  River  and  Minnesota  Journey 

This  was  the  last  and  longest  journey  of  Tho- 
reau's  ever- journey  ing  life.  It  took  him  away 
farther  from  his  dear  Concord  hills,  Nashawtuct, 
Anursnac,  and  Ponkawtassett,  than  he  had  ever 
been  before,  —  nearly  two  thousand  miles,  —  and 
occupied  his  time  for  two  months  of  the  year 
1861.  It  had  been  planned  and  debated  long  in 
advance,  for  the  benefit  of  his  failing  health;  and 
was  particularly  urged  by  Channing,  who,  more 

[  389  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

than  twenty  years  earlier,  had  lived  on  an  Illinois 
prairie  not  far  from  the  southern  border  of  Wis 
consin,  and  had  visited  those  regions  once  or 
twice  since.  It  had  been  as  good  as  settled  that 
Channing  should  accompany  him.  This  would 
have  had  the  great  advantage  for  the  invalid, 
that  he  would  have  been  with  his  best  and  most 
familiar  friend,  outside  of  his  own  household, 
and  a  companion  acquainted  with  the  country 
and  the  modes  of  travel  and  of  living.  But  every 
thing  was  uncertain  which  depended  on  Chan- 
ning's  variable  mood,  and  in  this  case,  possibly, 
on  the  state  of  his  purse,  for  his  income  was 
then  small.  Consequently  Thoreau  wrote  on  May 
3,  1861,  to  another  intimate  comrade,  Harrison 
Blake,  of  Worcester,  with  whom  he  had  been 
corresponding  and  rambling  for  a  dozen  years, 
intimating  a  wish  that  Blake  should  go.  This 
was  his  plan,  as  explained  to  Blake:  — 

I  have  concluded  it  will  be  most  expedient  for  me  to 
try  the  air  of  Minnesota,  say  somewhere  about  St. 
Paul.  I  am  only  waiting  to  be  well  enough  to  start. 
I  hope  to  get  off  within  a  week  or  ten  days.  I  shall 
have  to  study  my  comfort  in  travelling  to  a  remarkable 
degree,  —  stopping  to  rest,  etc.,  if  need  be.  I  think  to 
get  a  through  ticket  to  Chicago,  with  liberty  to  stop 
frequently  on  the  way:  at  Niagara  Falls  several  days 
or  a  week,  at  a  private  boarding-house;  then  a  night  or 

[  390  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

day  at  Detroit;  and  as  much  at  Chicago  as  my  health 
may  require.  At  Chicago  I  can  decide  at  what  point  — 
Fulton,  Dunleith,1  or  another  —  to  strike  the  Missis 
sippi,  and  take  a  boat  to  St.  Paul.  I  expect  to  be  gone 
three  months,  and  would  like  to  return  by  a  different 
route,  perhaps  Mackinaw  and  Montreal. 

I  have  thought,  of  course,  of  finding  a  companion; 
yet  not  seriously,  because  I  had  no  right  to  offer  myself 
as  a  companion  to  anybody;  having  such  a  peculiarly 
private  and  all-absorbing  but  miserable  business  as  my 
health,  and  not  altogether  his  to  attend  to.  Neverthe 
less  I  have  just  now  decided  to  let  you  know  of  my 
intention,  thinking  it  barely  possible  that  you  might 
like  to  make  a  part  or  the  whole  of  the  journey  at  the 
same  time;  and  perhaps  that  your  own  health  may  be 
such  as  to  be  benefited  by  it. 

Mr.  Blake  could  not  then  go,  but  asked  Tho- 
reau  to  spend  a  day  at  Worcester  with  him  on 
his  way,  which  was  done  on  Sunday,  May  11-12, 
1861.  It  was  finally  arranged,  as  he  thought,  that 
Channing  should  meet  him  at  Niagara,  where 
he  would  make  his  first  long  halt;  he  then  had 
his  list  of  clothes  made  out  by  his  mother  and 
sister;  it  was  this: 2 

A  half-thick  coat,  a  thin  coat,  "best  pants,"  three 
shirts,  a  flannel  shirt,  three  pairs  of  socks,  slippers, 

1  Now  East  Dubuque,  in  Illinois. 

2  Pencilled  on  a  scrap  of  a  letter  from  Chauncey  Smith,  a  Boston 
patent  lawyer,  enclosing  an  endorsed  note  of  hand,  for  $100,  pay 
able  April  23,  1860. 

[391] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

underclothing,  five  handkerchiefs,  a  waistcoat,  towels 
and  soap. 

With  such  little  articles  as  he  might  need,  in 
cluding  medicines.  Then  his  compass  and  mi 
croscope,  a  plant-book,  for  specimens,  a  botany- 
book  (no  doubt,  Gray),  insect  boxes,  twine  and 
cards,  writing  and  blotting  paper,  tape;  and  a 
dipper  and  bottle  for  foot- journeys. 

On  another  scrap  of  paper  are  a  few  figures, 
giving  the  different  pockets  in  each  of  which  he 
has  a  sum  of  money;  the  total  of  the  sums  being 
one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars.  The  details  of 
his  expenses,  to  be  given  hereafter,  amount  to 
less  than  this,  —  about  one  hundred  and  fifty 
dollars.  We  may  assume  the  total  cost  for  two 
months  as  between  one  hundred  and  fifty  and 
one  hundred  and  eighty  dollars. 

From  Worcester  to  Suspension  Bridge,  on  the 
Boston  and  Albany  and  New  York  Central  Rail 
roads,  Thoreau  made  these  notes :  — 

May  13.  Hills  near  the  railroad  between  Westfield 
and  Chester  Village,  and  thereafter  in  Massachusetts, 
may  be  as  high  or  higher  but  more  sincere,  or  less 
modish.  Leafing  in  Western  Massachusetts  more  ad 
vanced;  apple-trees  greenish,  red  elderberry  just  be 
ginning.  (May  14.)  From  Albany  to  Schenectady, 
Level,  in  pine  plains;  white  pine  and  white  birch; 

[  392  1 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

shadbush  in  bloom;  with  hills  at  last.  No  houses,  only 
two  or  three  huts  in  edge  of  woods  on  our  road.  .  .  . 
The  Mohawk  at  Schenectady;  stream  yellow  or  clay- 
colored,  bordered  with  willows  and  maples.  Above 
Schenectady  the  Mohawk  valley  is  more  than  half  a 
mile  wide;  low  bank,  with  interval  on  each  side, 
bounded  by  hills  200  and  300  feet  high.  On  north  side 
they  begin  to  flat  off  at  Palatine  Bridge.  Most  strik 
ing  rough  scenery  at  Little  Falls.  Pine  uplands;  coun 
try  spreads  out  wide  this  side  of  Utica.  Yet  more 
high  flats  beyond  Rome,  and  very  wet.  Syracuse  with 
lakes  and  salt-works.  Considerable  cedar  swamps  thus 
far,  and  farther.  In  Syracuse,  large,  city-like  streets. 
Country  between  Syracuse  and  Rochester  more  di 
versified,  or  hill  and  plain.  Afterwards  flat  again,  and 
probably  at  last  descending.  Rochester,  with  interest 
ing  river  and  Falls  dividing  it.  Arrived  at  the  Suspen 
sion  Bridge  for  the  night. 

On  the  15th  he  had  his  first  view  of  the  Falls, 
and,  like  everybody,  was  much  impressed  by  it. 
In  the  afternoon  he  was  at  Goat  Island.  He 
wrote:  — 

The  most  imposing  sight  as  yet  was  the  sight  of  the 
Rapids  from  the  upper  bridge,  like  the  sea  off  Cape 
Cod.  The  great  apparent  height  of  the  waves  tumbling 
over  the  immense  ledges  at  a  distance,  while  the  water 
view  is  broad  and  boundless  in  that  direction,  as  if  you 
were  looking  out  to  sea.  Yet  the  distances  are  very 
deceptive;  the  most  distant  billow  was  scarcely  more 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  off,  though  it  appeared  two 

[  393  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

miles  or  more.  Many  ducks  were  constantly  floating  a 
little  way  down  from  the  Rapids,  —  then  flying  back 
and  alighting  again.  The  water  farther  up  was  broken 
into  lengths  of  four  to  six  rods,  more,  probably.  There 
were  masses  of  ice  under  the  edge  of  the  cliff. 

Horace  Mann  asked  me  if  I  had  not  heard  the  sound 
of  the  Falls,  as  we  went  last  night  from  the  Suspension 
Bridge  depot  to  the  New  York  Central  hotel;  but  I 
had  not,  though  it  was  certainly  loud  enough.  I  had 
probably  mistaken  it  for  the  sound  of  a  train  coming 
in,  or  a  locomotive  letting  off  steam,  —  of  which  we 
have  so  much  in  Concord.  It  sounds  hardly  so  loud 
this  morning,  though  now,  at  Niagara  town,  we  are  only 
a  third  of  a  mile  off;  the  impression  is  as  if  I  were  sur 
rounded  by  factories.1 

The  days  spent  at  Niagara  were  well  em 
ployed,  gathering  and  noting  down  plants,  ob 
serving  birds,  measuring  the  girth  of  trees,  etc. 
May  17,  he  made  this  entry:  — 

Go  to  Suspension  Bridge  and  walk  up  on  the  Cana 
dian  side.  Pestered  by  coachmen,  etc.  The  completest 
view  of  the  Falls  is  from  that  side.  The  "Clifton 
House"  commands  the  best  view  of  any  public  house. 
Afternoon  to  the  river  above  the  Falls.  I  find  Indian 
pottery.  A  man  says  he  calls  the  ducks  in  the  river 
"coween,"  and  that  they  and  other  ducks,  both  wild 

1  There  were  none  in  Niagara  then,  but  now  a  great  many,  be 
sides  the  use  made  of  this  immense  water-power  to  turn  mill- 
wheels  at  a  distance.  These  first  observations,  written  out  at  his 
hotel,  show  how  original  and  close  were  his  observations. 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

and  tame,  alight  in  the  mist,  and  are  often  carried  over 
the  Falls.  Says  that  here  they  catch  with  a  seine  black 
and  white  bass,  pickerel,  muskellonge,  etc.,  and  below 
the  Falls  eels,  catfish,  etc.  In  the  woods  east  of  Niagara 
Town  is  the  red-headed  woodpecker.  The  ducks  in 
the  Rapids  are  apparently  the  long-tailed  duck  or  "old 
squaw." 

May  18.  Measure  the  trees  on  Goat  Island.  The 
bass  (two  of  them),  14  feet  4  inches,  and  13  ft.  5  in.; 
two  beeches,  8  ft.  6,  and  7  ft.  7.  This  was  the  circum 
ference.  (Measuring  the  girth  with  a  string  is  the  com 
mon  method.) 

Sunday,  May  19,  there  is  no  entry  in  the  Notes. 

May  20.  Niagara  to  Detroit.  Canada  agreeably  di 
versified,  i.e.,  more,  as  compared  with  New  York; 
with  a  view  of  Lake  Ontario,  quite  sea-like.  Decidedly 
more  level  west  of  London,  and  wet,  —  but  probably 
rich.  Great  fern  with  bulrush;  wild  fowl  east  of  Lake 
St.  Clair,  of  which  a  long  and  fine  view  on  each  side  of 
the  Thames.  The  one-dollar  houses  in  Detroit  are 
"The  Garrison"  and  "The  Franklin." 

May  21.  Detroit  to  Chicago.  Very  hilly  to  Ypsilanti, 
then  hilly  to  Ann  Arbor,  then  less  hilly  to  Lake  Michi 
gan.  All  hard  wood,  or  no  evergreen  except  some  white 
pine  when  we  struck  Lake  Michigan  (on  the  sands  from 
the  Lake),  and  some  larch  before.  Phlox,  varying  from 
white  to  bluish,  and  painted  cup,  deep  scarlet,  and  also 
yellow  (?),  or  was  this  wallflower  (?)  —  all  very  com 
mon  through  Michigan,  and  the  former,  at  least,  earlier 
than  with  us.  The  prevailing  shade  tree  in  Chicago  is 

[  395  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

the  cottonwood.  Chicago  is  about  14  feet  above  the 
Lake,  —  sewers  and  main  drains  fall  but  two  feet  in  a 
mile. 

May  %&.  Saw  last  evening  high  dune  hills  along  the 
Lake,  and  much  open  oak  wood,  low,  but  old  (?)  with 
black  trunks  but  light  foliage.  Rode  down  Michigan 
Avenue.  Men  sometimes  see  the  land  loom  across  the 
Lake  60  miles.  The  city  is  built  chiefly  of  limestone 
from  40  miles  southwest.  Lake  Street  is  the  chief  busi 
ness  one.  The  water  is  milky. 

M ay  23.  From  Chicago  to  Dunleith  [East  Dubuque]. 
Very  level  the  first  20  miles;  then  considerably  more 
undulating;  the  greatest  rolling  prairie  without  trees 
is  just  beyond  Winnebago.  The  last  40  miles  in 
the  northwest  of  Illinois  quite  hilly.  The  Mississippi 
causes  backwater  in  the  Galena  River  for  8  miles  back 
from  its  mouth  on  the  east  bank  of  the  Mississippi. 
The  water  is  high  now;  the  thin  woods  flooded,  with 
open  water  behind. 

Here  was  Thoreau's  first  view  of  the  great 
river,  on  which  he  embarked,  May  24,  for  a  two 
days'  voyage  to  St.  Paul  in  Minnesota.  His  notes 
are  full  of  interest;  everything  was  novel. 

There  is  only  one  boat  up  daily  by  this  line, — in  no 
case  allowed  to  stop  on  the  way.  Small  houses,  without 
barns,  surrounded  and  overshadowed  by  great  stacks 
of  wheat-straw.  It  is  being  thrashed  on  the  ground. 
The  distances  on  the  prairie  are  deceptive:  a  stack 
looks  like  a  hill  in  the  horizon,  a  quarter  or  half  mile 

[396] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

off,  —  it  stands  out  so  bold  and  high.  The  inhabitants 
remind  me  of  mice  nesting  in  a  wheat-stack,  which  is 
their  wealth. 

I  see  the  marsh  pink,  and  apples  on  a  flowered, 
apple-like  tree  (thorn-like)  through  Illinois,  which  may 
be  the  Pyrus  coronaria.  Women  are  working  in  the 
fields  quite  commonly.  Some  wood  is  always  visible, 
but  generally  not  large.  The  fences  are  of  narrow 
boards;  the  towns  are,  as  it  were,  stations  on  a  railroad. 

Sights  along  the  Mississippi  (May  2^-26, 1861) 

Steaming  up  the  River,  here  sixty  rods  wide,  but 
three  quarters  of  a  mile  between  the  bluffs.  The  bluffs 
are  (say)  150  to  200  feet  high.  Rarely  is  there  room  for 
a  village  at  the  foot  of  the  cliffs.  The  broad,  flooded  low 
intervale  is  covered  with  the  willow  in  bloom  (20  feet 
high),  rather  slender,  and  probably  other  kinds,  — 
elm  and  white  maple  and  cotton  wood.  Now  boatable 
between  the  trees;  and  probably  many  ducks  are  there. 
There  are  oaks  on  the  top  of  the  bluffs,  ash,  elm,  aspen; 
bass  on  the  slopes  and  by  the  shore.  The  birds  are 
kingfishers,  small  ducks,  jays,  etc.  The  river  banks  are 
in  their  primitive  condition  between  the  towns,  which 
is  almost  everywhere.  Occasionally  a  little  lonely 
house  stands  on  a  flat  or  slope,  often  deserted.  We  see 
holes  in  the  sides  of  hills  at  Cassville,  where  lead  has 
been  dug  out.  Occasionally  there  are  low  islands. 
There  are  great  rafts  of  boards  and  shingles,  four  or 
five  rods  wide  and  fifteen  or  twenty  rods  long;  but  very 
few  small  boats. 

Passengers  land  on  the  shore,  oftentimes  with  a 

397 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

plank.  Twenty  inen  in  ten  minutes  load  us  with  some 
80  or  90  cords  of  wood  at  one  landing,  —  disturbing 
a  bat,  which  flies  aboard  of  us.  A  willow-tree  is  shown 
floating  horizontally  across  the  river. 

We  got  to  Prairie  du  Chien  the  evening  of  May  24, 
and  to  Brownsville  about  six  the  next  morning.  Mac- 
gregor  is  a  new  town  in  Iowa,  opposite  Prairie  du 
Chien.  The  latter  is  "the  smartest  town  on  the  river"; 
it  exports  the  most  wheat  of  any  town  between  St. 
Paul  and  St.  Louis.  There  is  wheat  in  sacks,  great 
heaps  of  them  at  Prairie  du  Chien,  covered  at  night, 
and  all  on  the  ground.  We  reached  Fountain  City 
about  noon  on  the  25th.  White  pines  began  a  half 
dozen  miles  above  La  Crosse,  a  few  birches  com 
mon.  The  cliffs  here  are  high,  and  interrupted,  or  in 
promontories.  The  bluffs  grow  farther  apart,  and  the 
rain  channels  more  numerous  than  yesterday;  some 
times  there  are  two  or  three  miles  from  bluff  to  bluff. 
We  take  a  wood-boat  along  with  us.  Oaks,  commonly 
open,  —  on  both  sides  of  the  river.  We  see  Indians 
encamped  below  Wabasha,  with  Dakota-shaped  wig 
wams;  also  a  loon  on  a  lake,  and  fish  leaping. 

Every  town  has  a  wharf,  with  one  storage  build 
ing  (or  several)  on  it,  and  as  many  hotels;  this  is 
everything  except  commission  merchants.  "Storage," 
"Forwarding,"  or  "Commission,"  —  one  or  all  these 
words  are  on  the  most  prominent  new  buildings,  close 
to  the  waterside.  Perhaps  there  will  be  a  heap  of  sacks 
filled  with  wheat  on  the  natural  jetty  or  levee  close  by; 
or,  above  Dubuque  and  Dunleith,  a  blue  stack  of  pig 
lead,  which  is  in  no  danger  of  being  washed  away.  We 

[  398  1 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

see  where  they  have  dug  for  lead  in  the  sides  of  the 
bluffs  for  many  miles  above  Galena. 

The  steamer  approaching  whistles,  then  strikes  a  bell 
about  six  times  funereally,  with  a  pause  after  the  third 
bell;  and  then  you  see  the  whole  village  making  haste 
to  the  Landing,  —  commonly  the  raw,  stony  or  sandy 
shore;  the  postmaster  with  his  mailbag,  the  passenger, 
and  almost  every  dog  and  pig  in  town.  That  is  com 
monly  one  narrow  street  with  backyards,  at  an  angle  of 
about  45  degrees  with  the  horizon.  If  there  is  more 
flat  space  between  the  water  and  the  bluff,  it  is  almost 
sure  to  be  occupied  by  a  flourishing  and  larger  town. 
We  deserted  the  outside  of  the  steamboat  at  a  few 
miles  above  Red  Wing,  where  there  was  a  remarkable 
bluff,  standing  apart  before  the  town,  as  we  approached 
it.  We  reached  St.  Paul  at  two  or  three  o'clock  in  the 
morning  of  May  26.  The  bluffs  are  here  very  much 
lower;  and  even  below  Red  Wing  they  had  been  far 
more  interrupted  by  hollows.  We  wooded  up  again 
before  reaching  Lake  Pepin,  taking  the  woodboat  along 
with  us,  now  on  this  side,  now  on  that. 

May  26.  Sunday.  Breakfast  at  the  American  House 
in  St.  Paul,  and  come  on  by  stage  in  the  rain  to  St. 
Anthony,  nine  miles  over  the  prairie  in  the  rain,  —  the 
road  muddy  and  sandy.  At  St.  Paul  they  dig  their 
building  stone  out  of  the  cellar;  but  it  is  apparently 
poor  stuff.  We  had  towed  a  flatboat-load  of  stone  pots 
from  Dubuque  to  Winona,  —  the  latter  a  pretty  place. 

Remaining  at  St.  Anthony  and  Minneapolis 
a  week  or  more,  Thoreau  noted  all  things  note- 

[  399  ] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

worthy  there  —  among  others,  the  welcome  pres 
ence  of  a  naturalist,  Dr.  Charles  L.  Anderson, 
who  gave  him  companionship  and  information. 
He  reminds  himself:  — 

St.  Anthony  was  settled  about  1847,  Minneapolis  in 
1851.  Its  main  streets  are  the  unaltered  prairie,  with 
bur  and  other  oaks  left  standing.  The  roads  on  the 
prairie  are  a  mere  trail,  more  or  less  broad  and  distinct. 
Fort  Snelling  is  thirty  years  old,  and  there  was  an  ac 
count  of  it  in  the  old  "New  England  Magazine."  It 
retains  but  three  or  four  acres  of  the  great  unbroken 
prairie  that  formerly  belonged  to  the  Fort;  near  which 
is  a  red  oak,  the  largest  oak  I  have  seen  here.  The  Mis 
sissippi  is  at  its  highest  stage,  but  is  running  off.  I 
notice  how  the  ferry  across  the  Mississippi  is  worked 
by  the  stream  itself. 

A  slight  pencil  sketch,  such  as  often  appears  in 
his  Journal,  here  illustrates  this  device.  He  wit 
nessed  a  regimental  drill  at  this  fort,  where  volun 
teers  for  the  Union  army  in  the  Civil  War  were 
received  daily  and  sent  forward  to  serve  under 
Grant  and  other  generals  who  had  served  in  the 
Mexican  War.  He  notes,  "Some  600  volunteers 
are  there;  about  300  had  left  that  morning." 

Writing  to  me  some  weeks  later,  from  Red 
Wing,  he  said:  — 

The  people  of  Minnesota  have  seemed  to  me  more 
cold  —  to  feel  less  implicated  in  the  war  —  than  the 

[400] 


JOURNEYINGS   OF   THOREAU 

people  of  Massachusetts.  However,  I  have  dealt  partly 
with  those  of  Southern  birth,  and  have  seen  but  little 
way  beneath  the  surface.  I  was  glad  to  be  told  yester 
day  that  there  was  a  good  deal  of  weeping  here  at  Red 
Wing  when  the  volunteers  at  Fort  Snelling  followed  the 
regulars  to  the  seat  of  war.  They  do  not  weep  when 
their  children  go  up  the  river  to  occupy  the  deserted 
forts,  though  they  may  have  to  fight  the  Indians  there. 
It  has  chanced  that  about  half  the  men  I  have  spoken 
with  in  Minnesota,  whether  travellers  or  settlers,  were 
from  Massachusetts.  It  is  apparent  that  Massachu 
setts,  for  one  State  at  least,  is  doing  much  more 
than  her  share  in  carrying  the  war  on. 

This  activity  was  wholly  approved  by  Thoreau, 
who  believed  from  the  beginning  that  it  would 
prove  a  war  for  emancipation,  which  he  foresaw 
and  predicted. 

Fort  Snelling  is  built  of  limestone  (tawny  or  butter- 
ish)  ten  feet  high,  at  an  angle  of  the  two  rivers,  St. 
Peter's  and  the  Mississippi.  I  overlook  the  broad  val 
ley  of  the  St.  Peter's  River,  bounded  on  the  south, 
as  I  look,  by  a  long  range  of  low  hills.  The  govern 
ment  buildings  are  handsome;  there  was  a  mill  here 
before  the  settlement.  Steamers  go  up  to  the  Sauk 
Rapids,  above  the  Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  near  a  hun 
dred  miles  farther,  and  then  you  are  fairly  in  the 
pine  woods  and  the  lumbering  country.  The  St. 
Paul  Mission  to  the  Indians  was  not  far  south  of 
the  Fort. 

[401  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

On  May  28  he  went  botanizing  with  Dr.  An 
derson  to  Lake  Calhoun,  and  found  many  plants 
new  to  him.  While  gathering  them  he  notes, 
"The  rose-breasted  grosbeak  very  abundant  in 
the  woods  of  the  Minnehaha,  singing  robin-like 
all  the  while";  and  that  "acorns  are  full  as  scarce 
as  with  us  in  Concord,  picked  up  by  the  Spermo- 
phili,  and  no  doubt  planted  by  them."  He  con 
tinues:  "A  man  sustained  himself  one  winter  on 
the  spermophiles  which  he  shot  with  a  pistol, 
— a  little  flavored  with  slippery -elm  bark."  This 
tree,  which  is  rare  in  Concord,  he  found  common 
in  Minnesota.  His  "  spermophile  "  was  a  prairie 
squirrel,  of  whom  he  noted  the  habits,  in  these 
days  of  rambling  round  St.  Anthony  and  its  vi 
cinity.  He  is  the  Spermophilus  tridecemlineatus, 
"erect,  making  a  space  look  like  a  glove  over  his 
hole,  with  the  nest  of  the  gopher  bursarius  or 
pouched,"  says  Anderson.  A  distinction  is  here 
properly  drawn  between  the  Missouri  "gopher" 
(Geomys  bursarius)  and  the  Wisconsin  prairie 
squirrel.  The  name  "gopher"  describes  the  bur 
rowing  of  the  creature,  and  signifies  a  gray  squir 
rel  in  Canada,  a  striped  squirrel  in  Minnesota, 
and  a  pouched  rat  in  Missouri;  also  a  snake  in 
Georgia,  and  a  turtle  in  Florida.  Thoreau  de 
scribed  his  find  thus:  — 

[  402    1 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

Dirty  grayish- white  beneath,  —  above,  dirty  brown, 
with  six  dirty,  tawny  or  clay-colored,  very  light-brown 
lines,  alternating  with  broad,  dark-brown  lines  or 
stripes  (three  times  as  broad),  —  the  last  having  an 
interrupted  line  or  square  spot  of  the  same  color  with 
the  first-mentioned,  running  down  their  middle;  re 
minding  me  of  the  rude  pattern  of  some  Indian  work, 
—  porcupine  quills,  "gopher- work"  in  baskets  and 
pottery. 

The  other,  apparently  the  Missouri  gopher, 
is  thus  described :  — 

Larger,  —  and  indistinctly  or  finely  barred  or 
spotted  with  dark  and  light  brown, — the  hairs  being 
barred  so,  —  dark  —  light  —  dark.  Both  have  feet 
like  a  marmot,  and  large  pouches,  and  sit  up  by  their 
holes  like  a  woodchuck;  the  first  is  not  shy. 

At  St.  Paul  he  early  called  on  one  of  the 
Thatchers,  of  Bangor,  where  he  received  letters 
from  home;  and  he  remained  in  that  vicinity  for 
three  weeks,  and  then  joined  in  an  expedition  up 
St.  Peter's  River  to  the  Lower  Sioux  Agency,  to 
see  the  Sioux  receive  their  annual  payment  from 
the  United  States.  He  started  on  the  17th  of 
June,  and  on  the  23d  was  at  Red  Wing  below  St. 
Paul,  on  his  return  homeward.  But  before  going  up 
the  Minnesota  River,  he  had  various  adventures 
and  discoveries.  In  his  notes  I  find  these  facts:  — 

[  403  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

General  Pike's  Journal  for  1805  tells  in  a  few  words 
the  story  of  the  Lover's  Leap,  and  says  that  his  was 
the  first  white  man's  canoe  that  crossed  the  portage  at 
St.  Anthony's  Falls.  Catlin,  a  later  writer,  disappoints; 
it  is  only  with  his  pencil  that  he  is  good.  In  1823  the 
first  steamer  came  up  as  far  as  Fort  Snelling.  I  find 
that  Frank  Steele,  for  whom  our  steamer  to  Redwood 
is  named,  was  in  1837  the  first  white  man  who  "fleshed 
his  axe  in  the  unbroken  wilderness,"  and  commenced 
improvements  in  Minnesota;  then  he  built  a  house  in 
St.  Anthony.  Carver  was  on  the  Minnesota  River  in 
1775,  General  Cass  in  1820,  and  Schoolcraft  in  1832. 
But  La  Hontan  in  the  end  of  the  seventeenth  century 
described  that  river,  without  visiting  it,  —  for  it  seems 
to  be  his  Riviere  longue.  He  related  things  so  im 
probable  that  his  letter  has  been  regarded  as  pure 
fiction.  But  after  sailing  on  it  I  am  now  inclined  to 
reconsider  the  matter. 

La  Hontan's  book  was  written  between  1684 
and  1695,  though  not  published  in  Holland  and 
England  till  1703  and  later.  He  was  certainly  at 
Mackinaw;  and,  having  an  idle  winter  there,  he 
may  have  journeyed  through  Green  Bay  and  the 
Wisconsin  River,  and  made  up,  from  his  Indian 
guides  and  others,  his  fables  about  the  Long 
River.  He  was  an  observer  as  exact  as  Thoreau, 
or  as  Hector  St.  John,  when  he  chose  to  be  vera 
cious.  By  his  full  name  he  was  Louis  de  L'Arce, 
a  Gascon  baron,  lord  of  Hontan  and  Erleich, 

[  404  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

and  his  account  of  Thoreau's  puzzle,  the  ground 
squirrel,  which  he  terms  "the  Swiss  squirrel,"  is 
worth  quoting:  — 

They  are  little  animals  resembling  rats.  The  epithet 
of  "Swiss"  is  bestowed  upon  'em  in  regard  that  the 
hair  which  covers  their  body  is  streaked  with  black 
and  white,  and  resembles  a  Switzer's  doublet;  while  the 
streaks  make  a  ring  on  each  thigh  which  bears  a  deal  of 
resemblance  to  a  Swiss  cap. 

Thoreau  says  on  another  subject:  — 

On  June  5  I  went  to  Mrs.  Hamilton's  near  Lake  Har 
riet;  the  house  (in  Richfield)  built  seven  years  ago,  in 
1854.  Around  it  was  abundance  of  wild  artichoke.  She 
says  the  wild  apple  grew  then  about  her  premises;  her 
husband  first  saw  it  on  a  ridge  by  the  shore  of  Lake 
Harriet.  They  had  dug  up  several  trees  and  set  them 
out,  but  all  died.  The  settlers  also  set  out  the  wild 
plum,  thimbleberry,  etc.  So  I  went  and  searched  in 
that  very  unlikely  place,  but  could  find  nothing  like  it; 
though  Hamilton  said  there  was  one  there  three  feet 
higher  than  the  lake.  I  brought  home  a  thorn  in 
bloom,  and  asked  if  that  was  it?  Mrs.  H.  then  gave 
me  more  particular  directions,  and  I  searched  again 
faithfully;  and  this  time  I  brought  home  an  amelanchier 
as  the  nearest  of  kin,  —  doubting  if  the  apple  had  ever 
been  seen  there;  but  she  knew  both  those  plants.  Her 
husband  had  first  discovered  it  by  the  fruit;  she  had 
not  seen  it  in  bloom. 

We  then  called  in  Fitch  and  talked  about  it;  he  said 

[405] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

it  was  found,  and  the  same  they  had  in  Vermont  (?) 
and  directed  me  to  a  Mr.  Grimes  as  one  who  had  found 
it.  He  was  gone  to  catch  the  horses,  to  send  his  boy 
six  miles  for  a  doctor  on  account  of  a  sick  child.  The 
boy  showed  me  some  of  the  trees  he  had  set  out  this 
spring;  but  they  had  all  died,  having  a  long  tap-root, 
and  being  taken  up  too  late.  Then  I  was  convinced, 
by  the  sight  of  the  just  expanding  though  withered  leaf; 
and  I  plucked  a  solitary  withered  flower,  the  better  to 
analyze  it.  Finally  I  stayed,  and  went  in  search  of  the 
tree  with  the  father,  in  his  pasture,  —  where  I  found  it 
first  myself,1  quite  a  cluster  of  them. 

This  is  a  good  instance  of  the  persistence  of  a 
botanist  in  finding  what  he  is  searching  for.  Be 
fore  leaving  Mrs.  Hamilton's,  June  14,  he  inves 
tigated  the  prairie  squirrel  more  closely,  along 
with  Dr.  Anderson;  and  noted  another  minute 
discovery:  — 

I  saw  a  scum  on  the  smooth  surface  of  Lake  Harriet, 
three  or  four  feet  from  the  shore,  of  the  color  of  the 
shore-sand,  like  pollen  and  lint,  which  I  took  it  to  be. 
Taking  it  up  in  my  hand,  I  was  surprised  to  find  it  was 
shore-sand;  sometimes  pretty  large  grains,  a  tenth  of 
an  inch  in  diameter,  but  mostly  a  twentieth  or  less. 
Some  were  dark-brown,  some  white  or  yellowish,  — 
some  minute  but  perfectly  regular  pebbles  of  white 
quartz.  I  suppose  the  water,  rising  gently,  lifts  up  a 
layer  of  sand,  slightly  cemented  by  some  glutinous 

1  See  footnote  to  p.  427. 
[406  ] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

matter;  for  I  felt  a  slight  stickiness  in  my  hand  after 
the  gravel  or  sand  was  shaken  off.  It  was  in  ir 
regular  oblong  patches  of  scum,  three  or  four  inches 
long. 

June  6,  he  was  bird's-nesting,  —  a  favorite  oc 
cupation  :  — 

I  find  a  wild  pigeon's  nest  in  a  young  bass  tree,  ten 
feet  from  the  ground,  four  or  five  rods  south  of  Lake 
Calhoun.  It  was  built  over  a  broad  fork  of  the  tree, 
where  a  third  slender  twig  divided  it,  and  a  fourth 
forked  on  it. 

To  make  this  clearer  he  drew  on  the  page  a 
slight  sketch  of  the  branching  basswood,  and 
then  went  on:  — 

Built  of  slender  hard  twigs  only,  so  open  that  I 
could  see  the  eggs  from  the  ground,  and  also  so  slight 
that  I  could  scarcely  get  to  it  without  upsetting  it. 
The  bulk  of  the  nest  was  six  inches  over;  the  ring  of 
the  concavity  three  quarters  of  an  inch  thick,  but 
irregular.  At  first,  seeing  the  bird  fly  off,  I  thought  it 
an  unfinished  nest. 

On  June  9  he  was  rejoiced  by  finding  a  nest  of 
the  rose-breasted  grosbeak:  — 

It  was  ten  feet  high  up  in  a  young  bass,  and  had  four 
eggs  in  it,  —  green,  spotted  with  brown,  the  larger  end 
of  some  almost  all  brown.  The  whole  nest  was  six  to 
eight  inches  in  diameter,  and  about  four  inches  high; 

[407  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

the  inside  diameter  about  three  inches,  and  its  inside 
depth  two  inches.  The  outside  was  built  of  coarser 
weed-stems,  and  some  climbing  herbaceous  vine;  the 
rest  was  made  of  finer  brown  weed-stems,  at  last  quite 
fine  like  root-fibres  within.  The  male  bird  was  on  the 
nest,  and  when  scared  off  kept  within  three  or  four 
feet.  The  eggs  were  fresh. 

By  the  lake  in  a  scarlet  oak  eight  feet  up,  I  found  a 
pigeon's  nest  like  the  former  one,  but  more  stable,  con 
taining  one  young  bird  three  inches  long,  of  a  dirty 
yellowish  and  leaden  color,  with  pinfeathers,  and  with 
a  great  bill,  bare  at  the  base,  and  a  blackish  tip.  An 
other  young  bird  slipped  to  the  ground,  fluttering  as  if 
wounded,  two  or  three  times,  as  she  went  off  amid  the 
shrubs. 

One  afternoon,  going  over  to  the  Old  Prairie 
Fort,  he  found  a  nighthawk's  nest  with  two  eggs 
in  it,  "well  advanced  toward  hatching."  The 
loons  "are  said  to  nest  in  old  muskrat  houses, 
and  elsewhere  around  Lake  Harriet";  where,  on 
June  9,  he  had  finally  found  the  Pyrus  coronaria, 
or  wild  apple  tree.  Of  this  he  says :  — 

They  have  a  long  tap-root  going  down  into  the  clay 
beneath;  I  could  not  pull  up  a  small  one.  One  or  two 
hundred  trees  were  there,  and  among  them  the  yellow 
lady's-slipper. 

It  was  in  this  region  that  Thoreau  tested  the 
unusual  faculty  of  scent  which  he  possessed,  and 

[  408  1 


JOTJRNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

which  made  tobacco  and  other  common  odors 
offensive  to  him.  He  says:  — 

Going  over  a  low  hill  which  had  its  wood  cut  off  a 
year  or  two  since  (and  the  fire  had  run  over  it  after 
ward),  I  stooped  to  pluck  a  flower,  and  smelled  the 
spring  fragrance  I  have  so  often  perceived  here,  but 
now  stronger  and  nearer  than  ever.  So,  going  on  and 
breaking  off  plants  that  were  freshly  leaved  and  vigor 
ously  growing,  and  smelling  at  them,  I  found  at  last  a 
square-stemmed  one  which  yielded  the  strong  anise 
scent  that  I  had  noticed,  especially  when  bruised. 
But  then  it  was  far  from  being  so  agreeable  as  when 
perceived  floating  in  the  air.  This  seems  to  be  the 
Lophanthus  anisatus,  which  must  yield  the  fragrance 
mentioned.  Parry  calls  it  "a  characteristic  north 
western  species."  [Now  known  as  Agastache  Fceni- 
culum,  fragrant  giant  hyssop.] 

Of  these  species  Thoreau  made  long  lists, 
which  may  be  found  in  the  story  of  his  last 
Journey  printed  by  the  Boston  Bibliophile  So 
ciety.  As  numbered,  they  count  up  to  more  than 
a  hundred,  with  mention  of  the  places  where  he 
found  them. 

His  excursion  on  the  Frank  Steele  to  Redwood 
on  the  Minnesota  River  was  more  closely  de 
scribed  than  that  up  the  Mississippi,  but  it  fur 
nished  him  little  new  knowledge  about  the  In 
dians;  for  he  gave  but  one  day  to  Redwood,  either 

f  409  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

from  frugality  of  expense  or  from  failing  health  — 
perhaps  exhausted  by  his  weeks  around  St.  An 
thony  and  the  twin  cities. 

Scenes  on  the  Long  and  Crooked  River  (June  17-23) 

June  17,  6  P.M.  We  start  up  the  Minnesota  River  in 
the  Frank  Steele.  Till  nine  o'clock  the  river  valley 
very  broad  between  the  bluffs  and  hills.  The  banks  are 
some  six  feet  high,  with  much  handsome  but  weedy 
grass,  mixed  with  roses;  but  they  soon  slope  to  low, 
wet  and  reedy  meadows,  or  shallow  lagoons  behind  the 
river,  which  is  some  ten  rods  wide,  fringed  with  black 
willows.  The  large  trees  occasionally  were  cotton  wood 
and  elm.  The  cotton  wood  is  shaped  somewhat  like 
our  ash.  At  9  P.M.  we  are  near  Shakopee. 

At  five  in  the  morning  we  are  said  to  be  in  the  big 
woods;  all  alive  with  pigeons,  and  they  flying  across 
our  course.  Here  the  river  is  often  only  eight  rods  wide 
and  quite  snaggy.  About  7.30  we  pass  a  beautiful  open 
intervale  of  native  grass  on  the  right;  many  Erigerons 
in  the  grass.  Many  large  turtle-tracks  on  the  shore. 
Muddy-looking  water,  with  soft-shelled  and  snap 
ping  turtles  in  it.  Swallows,  kingfishers,  blue  jays  and 
warbling  vireos  along  the  shores,  and  in  the  river  some 
young  ducks.  See  a  turkey-buzzard  and  blue  herons. 
The  black  willows  are  often  quite  tall  (35  feet)  slender 
and  straight  too.  The  small  Salix  longifolia  is  beneath 
it,  quite  common,  and  there  is  a  dense  growth  of  up 
right  weeds.  Very  crooked  stream;  acres  of  roses  in  the 
intervale.  We  often  strike  the  shore  with  our  stern,  or 

[410] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF   THOREAU 

stop  and  back  to  get  round  snags  and  bars.  Grape 
vines  in  blossom  are  climbing  on  the  cottonwood. 
Note  the  big  wood  near  Henderson.  Usually  these 
woods  are  fringed  with  low  intervale  and  meadow  be 
hind.  Great  bends  in  this  river;  by  the  channel  as  we 
sail  it  is  250  or  300  miles  from  St.  Paul  to  Redwood, 
but  not  more  than  120  by  land  in  a  straight  line.  It  is 
good  sailing  from  New  Ulna,  a  German  settlement,  for 
some  distance.  We  reach  Fort  Ridgely  by  evening. 
Much  more  bare  bluff  and  plain  to-day.  La  Hontan 
spoke  of  a  great  river  coming  in  from  the  west,  like 
this;  it  is  indeed  very  long  and  navigable.  The  navi 
gation  is  very  novel  to  me.  The  water  is  rather  low 
now;  it  has  been  15  feet  higher.  In  making  a  short  turn 
round  a  bend,  we  often  and  designedly  run  into  the 
steep  and  soft  bank,  taking  in  a  cartload  of  earth.  This 
fetches  us  about  quicker  than  the  rudder  could.  There 
was  not  a  straight  reach  a  mile  long;  generally  you 
could  not  see  a  quarter-mile  ahead,  and  our  boat  was 
constantly  turning  this  way  or  that.  At  the  Traverse 
des  Sioux,  some  passengers  were  landed  and  walked 
across  the  neck  of  the  isthmus,  to  be  taken  in  on  the 
other  side,  after  the  boat  had  sailed  from  one  to  three 
miles  round. 

The  deep  water  was  often  so  narrow  and  close  to  the 
shore  that  I  could  pluck  almost  any  plant  on  the  bank 
from  the  boat.  New  Ulm  was  the  last  of  the  little 
settlements,  100  miles  south  of  Redwood.  We  left  the 
Germans  there  100  barrels  of  salt,  which  will  be  at  a 
higher  price  when  the  water  is  lowest.  Our  boat  was 
160  feet  long  and  drew  three  feet  of  water  only,  often 

[411] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

water  and  sand.  We  frequently  got  aground,  and  then 
drew  ourselves  along  by  a  windlass  and  a  cable  hitched 
to  a  tree.  Sometimes  we  swung  round  and  blocked  up 
the  stream,  one  end  of  the  boat  resting  on  each  shore. 
Once  we  ran  into  a  concealed  rock  with  a  great  shock; 
and  the  mate  went  below  with  a  lamp,  expecting  to 
find  a  hole,  but  did  not.  Snags  and  sawyers  were  com 
mon;  but  so  long  as  our  boiler  did  not  burst,  no  serious 
accident  was  likely  to  happen. 

Redwood,  when  we  got  there  on  the  20th,  at  the 
Lower  Sioux  Agency,  was  a  mere  locality,  scarcely  an 
Indian  village,  with  a  storehouse  and  some  houses  for 
the  Indians.  Landing,  we  were  fairly  on  the  great  bare 
plains.  Looking  south,  and  walking  three  miles  in  that 
direction,  we  could  see  no  tree  in  that  horizon.  The 
buffalo  was  said  to  be  feeding  within  twenty-five  or 
thirty  miles,  but  we  saw  none. 

A  regular  Council  was  held  on  the  20th  of  June,  and 
continued  for  three  days,  but  our  boat  only  waited  a 
little  more  than  a  day.  The  Indians  had  come  in  on 
their  ponies,  and  speeches  were  made  on  both  sides;  the 
Indians  having  the  advantage  in  truth  and  earnestness, 
as  usual.  The  most  prominent  Sioux  chief  was  Little 
Crow.  In  the  afternoon  the  half -naked  Indians  gave  a 
dance  at  the  request  of  the  Governor  of  Minnesota,  for 
our  amusement  and  their  profit.  In  it  were  30  men 
dancing,  and  twelve  musicians  with  drums;  others 
struck  their  arrows  against  their  bows.  Some  dancers 
blew  flutes  and  kept  good  time,  moving  their  feet  or 
their  shoulders,  —  sometimes  one,  sometimes  both. 
They  wore  no  shirts. 

[  412  1 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

Thoreau  does  not  seem  to  have  been  so  much 
interested  in  these  Indians  as  in  those  of  Maine. 
Almost  the  only  mention  of  them  except  the  above 
was  to  describe  their  way  of  lighting  their  pipes. 
He  had  a  friend,  an  "Illinois  man,"  on  the  steamer 
who  gave  him  this  recipe:  — 

Indian  strikefire:  Take  a  little  punk,  —  the  Illinois 
man  says  from  the  white  maple,  —  and  hold  it  flat 
against  a  flint;  then  strike  across  the  edge  with  a  steel 
ring,  and  put  the  ignited  punk  in  the  pipe. 

It  was  hardly  worth  coming  two  hundred  and 
fifty  miles  to  learn  so  little  as  this.  Five  bands  of 
Indians  had  come  in  on  June  20,  the  day  of  the 
dance,  and  were  feasted  on  an  ox,  cut  into  five 
parts,  one  for  each  band.  That  night  the  steamer, 
on  her  return  trip,  lay  halfway  between  Redwood 
and  Fort  Ridgely,  and  on  the  21st  lay  half  the 
night  fifteen  miles  above  Mankato,  near  which 
was  the  rock  on  which  the  boat  struck.  On  the 
22d  they  reached  Red  Wing  and  there  botanized 
for  a  few  days,  while  awaiting  letters  from  Con 
cord.  Thoreau  says:  — 

At  Red  Wing,  sixty-four  miles  below  St.  Paul  on  the 
Mississippi,  I  was  told  that  a  hundred  rattlesnakes  a 
day  could  have  been  killed  about  Barn  Bluff,  six  or 
seven  years  ago.  They  were  very  thick  on  the  hillsides 
then  —  three  kinds  in  all,  my  informant  said.  Yet 

[413] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

nobody  had  been  killed  that  he  knew  of,  though  several 
were  bitten.  They  were  made  sick  for  some  time  —  a 
squaw  there,  for  instance,  the  very  last  summer. 

It  does  not  appear  that  Thoreau  saw  a  rattle 
snake  during  his  tour,  though  so  much  on  the 
prairie  and  about  the  lakes. 

June  26.  At  two  P.M.  We  leave  Red  Wing  in  the 
War  Eagle  for  Prairie  du  Chien,  some  200  miles  dis 
tant.  Mrs.  TJpham,  of  Clinton,  is  with  us;  she  has  a 
cousin  at  Bedford  near  Concord.  Our  steamer  draws 
two  and  one-half  feet  of  water.  The  grand  feature 
hereabout  is  the  Mississippi  River.  Too  much  can 
hardly  be  said  of  its  grandeur,  and  of  the  beauty  of  this 
portion  of  it  from  Rock  Island  to  Red  Wing.  St.  Paul 
is  near  the  head  of  uninterrupted  navigation  on  the 
main  stream,  about  2000  miles  from  its  mouth.  It  is 
almost  as  wide  in  the  upper  as  in  the  lower  part  of  its 
course.  Thus  it  flows  from  the  pine  to  the  palm.  We 
reached  Prairie  du  Chien  down  the  Mississippi,  about 
3  A.M.,  June  27.  Thence  by  cars  to  Milwaukee  across 
Wisconsin,  and  there  embarked  on  a  steamer  for 
Mackinaw.  Milwaukee,  of  all  the  settled  places,  has 
the  best  harbor  on  Lake  Michigan.  The  lake  is  ninety 
miles  wide,  and  we  cannot  see  across  it;  but  we  see  the 
land  loom  sometimes,  on  each  side  from  our  steamer 
in  the  middle.  We  reached  Mackinaw  at  2  A.M.  on 
June  30. 

Thoreau  remained  in  Mackinaw  resting,  ob 
serving,  botanizing,  and  querying,  for  five  days. 

[414] 


JOURNEYINGS    OF    THOREAU 

The  summer  there  was  cold,  and  he  sat  by  his  fire, 
July  2,  at  the  "Mackinaw  House"  chatting  with 
one  person  and  another  about  the  climate  and 
customs  of  the  region,  as  his  custom  was  wher 
ever  he  might  be.  The  ice  in  those  upper  lake 
waters  forms,  he  finds,  about  the  middle  of  Janu 
ary,  and  lasts  till  May ;  indeed,  in  June,  "  quite 
recently,"  ice  had  been  seen  at  a  bend  of  Lake 
Superior.  He  got  away  from  this  chilly  northwest 
passage,  July  4,  spent  Sunday  at  Toronto,  sailed 
for  Ogdensburg  on  the  8th,  and  thence  by  rail  he 
came  through  Vermont  and  New  Hampshire  to 
Concord,  —  fatigued,  and  after  a  shorter  absence 
than  he  had  planned.  Five  weeks  later,  he  wrote 
to  Daniel  Ricketson :  — 

I  returned  a  few  weeks  ago,  after  a  good  deal  of 
steady  travelling,  considerably,  yet  not  essentially 
better.  I  will  pay  you  a  visit  next  week,  and  take  such 
rides  and  sauntering  walks  as  an  invalid  may. 


CHAPTEE  XIII 

VILLAGE  SKETCHES,  CHIEFLY  FROM  THE 
JOURNALS 

The  Fire  in  the  Woods  of  April,  1844 

THE  most  serious  offence  that  Thoreau  ever 
gave  to  the  farmers  and  landowners  of  his  native 
town  was  on  Town-Meeting  Day,  in  April,  1844, 
when  he  was  six-and-twenty;  and,  according  to 
their  view  of  his  rights  and  obligations,  should 
have  been  making  speeches,  or  voting  on  motions 
for  the  raising  of  taxes,  and  debating  appro 
priations  for  town  expenses.  Instead  of  this,  he 
and  his  younger  companion,  Edward  Hoar,  one  of 
the  three  sons  of  the  village  magnate,  jurist,  and 
former  Congressman,  Samuel  Hoar,  were  spend 
ing  the  day  on  the  Sudbury  River,  and  meant  to 
explore  its  sources  before  they  returned.  Edward 
Hoar  was  in  Harvard  College,  and  graduated  that 
year.  Thoreau  had  graduated  seven  years  earlier, 
had  been  teaching  school  and  writing  a  book;  but 
his  latest  occupation  had  been  to  assist  his  father 
in  digging  a  cellar  and  building  a  house  in  the  vil 
lage  corner  known  as  "Texas."  Some  years  after 
ward  he  wrote  this  story  of  the  day's  adventures, 

[4161 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

but  never  published  it;  so  that  the  date  was  rather 
in  dispute,  when,  long  after  his  death,  it  appeared 
in  the  "Atlantic  Monthly."  Here  it  is,  with  com 
ments  :  — 

I  once  set  fire  to  the  woods.  Having  set  out,  one 
April  day,  to  go  to  the  sources  of  Concord  River  in  a 
boat,  with  a  single  companion,  meaning  to  camp  on 
the  bank  at  night,  or  seek  a  lodging  in  some  neighbor 
ing  country  inn  or  farmhouse,  we  took  fishing-tackle 
with  us,  that  we  might  fitly  procure  our  food  from  the 
stream,  Indian-like.  At  the  shoemaker's  near  the  river 
we  obtained  a  match,  which  we  had  forgotten. 

(Where  they  took  boat  is  not  remembered.  It 
was  not  the  boat  in  which  John  and  Henry  made 
their  voyage  of  1839,  for  that  had  been  made  over 
to  Hawthorne  at  the  Old  Manse,  who  was  mak 
ing  in  it  those  fishing-trips  with  Ellery  Channing 
which  are  commemorated  in  the  "Mosses"  by 
Hawthorne.  When  Hawthorne  left  Concord,  he 
gave  the  boat  over  to  Channing,  in  whose  hands  it 
remained  Channing  was  himself  in  New  York  at 
this  time,  and  was  soon  to  meet  Thoreau  in  Berk 
shire  and  make  a  trip  with  him  to  the  Catskills.) 

Though  it  was  thus  early  in  the  spring,  the  river  was 
low,  for  there  had  not  been  much  rain;  and  we  suc 
ceeded  in  catching  a  mess  of  fish  sufficient  for  our 
dinner  before  we  had  left  the  town;  and  by  the  shores 

[417] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

of  Fair  Haven  Pond  we  proceeded  to  cook  them.  The 
earth  was  uncommonly  dry,  and  our  fire,  kindled  far 
from  the  woods  in  a  sunny  recess  in  the  hillside  on  the 
east  of  the  pond,  suddenly  caught  the  dry  grass  of  the 
previous  year  which  grew  about  the  stump  on  which 
it  was  kindled. 

We  sprang  to  extinguish  it,  at  first  with  our  hands 
and  feet,  and  then  we  fought  it  with  a  board  obtained 
from  the  boat;  but  in  a  few  minutes  it  was  beyond  our 
reach.  Being  on  the  side  of  a  hill,  it  spread  rapidly  up 
ward,  through  the  long,  dry,  wiry  grass  interspersed 
with  bushes.  "Well,  where  will  this  end?"  asked  my 
companion.  I  saw  that  it  might  be  bounded  by  Well 
Meadow  Brook  on  one  side;  but  would  perchance  go  to 
the  village  side  of  that  brook.  "  It  will  go  to  town,"  I 
answered.  While  my  companion  took  the  boat  back 
down  the  river,  I  set  out  through  the  woods,  to  inform 
the  owners,  and  to  raise  the  town. 

The  fire  had  already  spread  a  dozen  rods  on  every 
side,  and  went  leaping  and  crackling  wildly  and  irre- 
claimably  toward  the  wood.  That  way  went  the  flames 
with  wild  delight;  and  we  felt  that  we  had  no  control 
over  the  demonic  creature  to  which  we  had  given 
birth.  We  had  kindled  many  fires  in  the  woods  before, 
—  burning  a  clear  space  in  the  grass,  —  without  ever 
kindling  such  a  fire  as  this. 

As  I  ran  toward  the  town  through  the  woods,  I 
could  see  the  smoke  over  the  woods  behind  me  mark 
ing  the  spot  and  the  progress  of  the  flames.  The  first 
farmer  whom  I  met  (driving  a  team),  after  leaving  the 
woods,  inquired  the  cause  of  the  smoke.  I  told  him. 

[418] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

"Well,"  said  he,  "it  is  none  of  my  stuff,"  and  drove 
along.  The  next  I  met  was  the  owner  in  his  field,  with 
whom  I  returned  at  once  to  the  woods,  running  all  the 
way.  I  had  already  run  two  miles.  When  at  length  we 
got  into  the  neighborhood  of  the  flames,  we  met  a 
carpenter  who  had  been  hewing  timber,  an  infirm 
man,  who  had  been  driven  off  by  the  fire,  fleeing  with 
his  axe.  The  farmer  returned  to  hasten  more  assistance. 
I,  who  was  spent  with  running,  remained.  What  could 
I  do  alone  against  a  front  of  flame  half  a  mile  wide? 

(The  farmer  must  have  been  Deacon  W.,  who 
owned  many  acres  of  woodland  in  the  low  plateau 
between  Fair  Haven  Pond  and  Fair  Haven  Cliff. 
Much  of  it  had  been  cut  over  the  previous  winter, 
and  there  were  said  to  be  100  cords  ready  for  mar 
ket,  worth,  even  at  the  prices  of  that  day,  from 
$300  to  $450.  Many  good  trees  were  left  standing, 
whose  value  the  fire  would  greatly  injure,  if  not 
destroy.  Other  owners  had  adjoining  woodlots, 
and  which  would  be  swept  and  which  spared  by 
the  blaze,  nobody  could  say.  The  course  then 
taken  by  the  unlucky  cause  of  the  calamity,  was 
probably  the  wisest  he  could  take.  He  had  given  no 
tice,  and  the  villagers  were  coming  to  the  rescue.) 

I  walked  slowly  through  the  wood  [and  up  a  tall  hill] 
to  Fair  Haven  Cliff,  climbed  to  the  highest  rock,  and 
sat  down  upon  it  to  observe  the  progress  of  the  flames, 
which  were  rapidly  approaching  me,  now  about  a  mile 

[419  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

distant  from  the  spot  where  the  fire  was  kindled.  Pres 
ently  I  heard  the  sound  of  the  distant  bell  giving  the 
alarm,  and  I  knew  that  the  town  was  on  its  way  to 
the  scene.  Hitherto  I  had  felt  like  a  guilty  person  — 
nothing  but  shame  and  regret.  But  now  I  settled  the 
matter  with  myself  shortly.  I  said  to  myself:  "Who 
are  these  men  who  are  said  to  be  the  owners  of  these 
woods,  and  how  am  I  related  to  them?  I  have  set  fire 
to  the  forest;  but  I  have  done  no  wrong  therein;  and 
now  it  is  as  if  the  lightning  had  done  it.  These  flames 
are  but  consuming  their  natural  food." 

(It  has  never  troubled  me  from  that  day  to  this  more 
than  if  the  lightning  had  done  it.  The  trivial  fishing 
was  all  that  disturbed  me,  and  disturbs  me  still.)  So 
shortly  I  settled  it  with  myself,  and  stood  to  watch 
the  approaching  flames.  It  was  a  glorious  spectacle, 
and  I  was  the  only  one  there  to  enjoy  it.  The  fire  now 
reached  the  base  of  the  Cliff,  and  then  rushed  up  its 
sides.  The  squirrels  ran  before  it  in  blind  haste,  and 
three  pigeons  dashed  into  the  midst  of  the  smoke.  The 
flames  flashed  up  the  pines  to  their  tops,  as  if  they  were 
powder.  When  I  found  I  was  about  to  be  surrounded 
by  the  fire,  I  retreated,  and  joined  the  forces  now  ar 
riving  from  the  town. 

It  took  us  several  hours  to  surround  the  flames  with 
our  hoes  and  shovels  and  by  back  fires  subdue  them. 
In  the  midst  of  all  I  saw  the  farmer  whom  I  first  met, 
who  had  turned  indifferently  away,  saying  it  was  none 
of  his  stuff,  striving  earnestly  to  save  his  corded  wood, 
—  his  stuff,  —  which  the  fire  had  already  seized,  and 
which  it  after  all  consumed. 

[4201 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

It  burned  over  one  hundred  acres  or  more,  and  de 
stroyed  much  young  wood.  When  I  returned  home  late 
in  the  day,  with  others  of  my  townsmen,  I  could  not 
help  noticing  that  the  crowd,  who  were  so  ready  to  con 
demn  the  individual  who  had  kindled  the  fire,  did  not 
sympathize  with  the  owners  of  the  wood,  but  were  in 
fact  highly  elate,  and,  as  it  were,  thankful  for  the  op 
portunity  which  had  afforded  them  so  much  sport; 
and  it  was  only  half  a  dozen  owners  (so  called),  though 
not  all  of  them,  who  looked  sour  or  grieved,  and  I  felt 
that  I  had  a  deeper  interest  in  the  woods,  knew  them 
better,  and  should  feel  their  loss  more,  than  any  or  all  of 
them.  The  farmer  whom  I  had  first  conducted  to  the 
woods  was  obliged  to  ask  me  the  shortest  way  back, 
through  his  own  lot. 

Why,  then,  should  the  half-dozen  owners  and  the 
individuals  who  set  the  fire  alone  feel  sorrow  for  the 
loss  of  the  wood,  while  the  rest  of  the  town  have  their 
spirits  raised?  Some  of  the  owners,  however,  bore 
their  loss  like  men;  but  other  some  declared,  behind 
my  back,  that  I  was  a  "damned  rascal";  and  a  flib 
bertigibbet  or  two,  who  crowed  like  the  old  cock, 
shouted  some  reminiscences  of  "burnt  woods"  from 
safe  recesses,  for  some  years  after.  I  have  had  noth 
ing  to  say  to  any  of  them.  The  locomotive  engine 
has  since  burned  over  nearly  all  the  same  ground  and 
more;  and  in  some  measure  blotted  out  the  memory 
of  the  previous  fire.  To  be  sure,  I  felt  a  little  ashamed 
when  I  reflected  on  what  a  trivial  occasion  this  had 
happened — that  at  the  time  I  was  no  better  employed 
than  my  townsmen. 

[421  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

That  night  I  watched  the  fire,  where  some  stumps 
still  flamed  at  midnight  in  the  midst  of  the  blackened 
waste;  wandering  through  the  woods  by  myself;  and 
far  in  the  night  I  threaded  my  way  to  the  spot  where  the 
fire  had  taken,  and  discovered  the  now  broiled  fish,  — 
which  had  been  dressed,  —  scattered  over  the  burnt 
grass. 

When  the  lightning  burns  the  forest,  its  Director 
makes  no  apology  to  man;  and  I  was  but  His  agent. 
Perhaps  we  owe  to  this  accident  partly  some  of  the 
noblest  natural  parks.  It  is  inspiriting  to  walk  amid  the 
fresh  green  sprouts  of  grass  and  of  shrubbery  pushing 
upward  through  the  charred  surface  with  more  vigor 
ous  growth. 

This  is  probably  the  most  important  transac 
tion  between  Thoreau  and  his  townsmen  during 
his  first  thirty  years.  It  had  something  to  do  with 
his  retirement  to  the  Walden  woods  the  next  year 
(1845),  and  it  left  shades  of  regret  and  animosity 
in  certain  families  for  years;  and  in  Thoreau's  own 
just  soul  more  remorse  than  he  here  expresses.  I 
have  been  told  that  the  fact  of  Edward  Hoar's 
being  equally  guilty  (or  innocent)  with  himself 
prevented  following  up  the  accident  with  a  legal 
prosecution.  So  utterly  had  it  been  generally  for 
gotten,  twelve  years  after,  when  I  became  a  resi 
dent  of  the  town,  that  I  never  heard  a  whisper  of 
it  till  this  passage  was  found  among  his  manu- 

[422  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

scripts,  and  printed  in  the  "Atlantic."  But  for 
the  seventy  years  since  the  locomotives  have  been 
scattering  sparks  through  the  Concord  woods, 
such  forest  fires  have  been  of  frequent  occurrence, 
and  have  called  out  the  help  of  Emersons,  Tho- 
reaus,  Channings,  and  everybody  else  to  check 
them.  I  saw  Thoreau  plant  for  Emerson,  his  Wai- 
den  beanfield  with  pine  trees,  and  fifty  years  later 
I  saw  a  forest  fire  from  the  railroad  destroy  most 
of  them. 

George  Minott,  a  Poetical  Farmer 

Minott  is  perhaps  the  most  poetical  farmer,  who 
most  realizes  to  me  the  poetry  of  the  farmer's  life,  that 
I  know.  He  does  nothing  with  haste  and  drudgery,  but 
as  if  he  loved  it.  He  makes  the  most  of  his  labor,  and 
takes  infinite  satisfaction  in  every  part  of  it.  He  is  not 
looking  forward  to  the  sale  of  his  crops,  or  any  pecuniary 
profit,  but  is  paid  by  the  constant  satisfaction  which 
his  labor  yields  him.  He  has  not  too  much  land  to  trou 
ble  him,  —  too  much  work  to  do,  —  no  hired  man  nor 
boy;  but  simply  to  amuse  himself  and  live.  He  cares 
not  so  much  to  raise  a  large  crop  as  to  do  his  work  well. 
Farming  is  an  amusement  which  has  lasted  him  longer 
than  gunning  or  fishing.  He  is  never  in  a  hurry  to  get 
his  garden  planted;  and  yet  it  is  always  planted  soon 
enough,  and  none  in  the  town  is  kept  so  beautifully 
clean. 

He  handles  and  amuses  himself  with  every  ear  of  his 
corn  crop  as  much  as  a  child  with  his  playthings ;  and 

F  423  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

so  his  small  crop  goes  a  great  way.  The  seed  of  weeds 
is  no  longer  in  his  soil.  He  loves  to  walk  in  a  swamp  in 
windy  weather  and  hear  the  wind  groan  through  the 
pines.  He  indulges  in  no  luxury  of  food  or  dress  or  fur 
niture, —  yet  he  is  not  penurious,  but  merely  simple. 
If  his  sister  dies  before  him,  he  may  have  to  go  to  the 
almshouse  in  his  old  age;  yet  he  is  not  poor,  for  he 
does  not  want  riches.  With  never-failing  rheumatism 
and  trembling  hands,  he  seems  yet  to  enjoy  perennial 
health. 

Though  he  never  reads  a  book,  —  since  he  has  fin 
ished  the  "Naval  Monument,"  —  he  speaks  the  best  of 
English.  He  used  the  word  "gavel "  to  describe  a  parcel 
of  stalks  cast  on  the  ground  to  dry.  His  are  good  old 
English  words,  and  I  am  always  sure  to  find  them  in 
the  Dictionary,  though  I  never  heard  them  before  in 
my  life. 

This  was  written  in  October,  1851;  in  1856  he 
added  this:  — 

Minott  said  he  saw  Emerson  come  home  from  lec 
turing  the  other  day  with  his  "knitting-bag"  (lecture- 
bag)  in  his  hand.  He  asked  him  if  the  lecturing  business 
was  as  good  as  it  used  to  be.  Emerson  said  he  did  n't 
see  but  it  was  as  good  as  ever;  guessed  the  people 
would  want  lectures  "as  long  as  he  or  I  lived." 

March  19,  1861,  Thoreau  wrote  to  Daniel 
Ricketson:  — 

You  remember  Minott's  cottage  on  the  hillside  near 
Emerson's?  The  little  gray  hip-roofed  cottage  was 

[  424  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

occupied  at  the  beginning  of  February,  this  year,  by 
George  Minott  and  his  sister  Mary,  respectively 
seventy-eight  and  eighty  years  old,  and  Miss  Potter 
seventy-four.  These  had  been  permanent  occupants 
for  many  years.  Minott  had  been  on  his  last  legs  for 
some  time;  at  last  off  his  legs,  expecting  weekly  to  take 
his  departure,  —  a  burden  to  himself  and  friends,  — 
yet  dry  and  natural  as  ever.  His  sister  took  care  of  him, 
and  supported  herself  and  family  with  her  needle,  as 
usual.  He  lately  willed  his  little  property  to  her,  as  a 
slight  compensation  for  her  care.  February  13,  their 
sister,  eighty-six  or  eighty-seven,  who  lived  across  the 
way,  died.  Miss  Minott  had  taken  cold  in  visiting  her, 
and  was  so  sick  that  she  could  not  go  to  her  funeral. 
She  herself  died  of  lung  fever  on  the  18th  (which  was 
said  to  be  the  same  disease  that  her  sister  had),  having 
just  willed  her  property  back  to  George,  and  added  her 
own  mite  to  it.  Miss  Potter,  too,  had  now  become  ill, 
—  too  ill  to  attend  the  funeral,  —  and  she  died  of  the 
same  disease  on  the  23d.  All  departed  as  gently  as  the 
sun  goes  down,  leaving  George  alone. 

I  called  to  see  him  the  other  day,  the  27th  of  Feb 
ruary,  —  a  remarkably  pleasant  spring  day,  —  and 
as  I  was  climbing  the  sunny  slope  to  his  strangely  de 
serted  house,  I  heard  the  first  bluebirds  upon  the  elm 
that  hangs  over  it.  They  had  come  as  usual  though 
some  who  used  to  hear  them  were  gone.  Even  Minott 
had  not  heard  them,  for  he  was  thinking  of  other 
things.  Perhaps  there  will  be  a  time  when  the  birds 
themselves  will  not  return  any  more. 

I  hear  that  George,  sitting  on  the  side  of  his  bed,  a 

[425  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

few  days  after  this,  called  out  to  his  niece,  who  had 
come  to  take  care  of  him,  and  was  in  the  next  room,  — 
to  know  if  she  did  not  feel  lonely?  "Yes,  I  do,"  said 
she.  "So  do  I,"  added  he.  He  said  he  was  like  an  old 
oak,  all  shattered  and  decaying.  "I  am  sure,  Uncle," 
said  his  niece,  "you  are  not  much  like  an  oak."  "I 
mean,"  said  he,  "that  I  am  like  an  oak  or  any  other 
tree,  inasmuch  as  I  cannot  stir  from  where  I  am." 

George  Minott  was  the  nephew  of  that  Captain 
Minott  who  was  the  second  husband  of  Mary 
Jones,  Thoreau's  grandmother,  in  whose  farm 
house  Henry  was  born.  He  (George)  was  Tho 
reau's  "Old  Man  of  Verona";  and  Channing,  who 
called  him  "Angelo,"  had  much  to  say  of  him; 
describing  him  as  "native  and  to  the  manor  born, 
who  was  never  away  from  home  but  once,  when  he 
was  drafted  as  a  soldier  in  the  last  war  with  Eng 
land,  and  went  to  Dorchester  Heights." 

George  Melvin  and  the  Pink  Azalea 

Equally  keen  as  a  sportsman,  but  not  so  esti 
mable  in  character,  was  George  Melvin,  with  whom 
Thoreau  had  much  intercourse,  and  by  whom  he 
was  introduced  to  the  Azalea  nudiflora,  in  the 
woods  on  the  Lee  Farm,  which  in  Thoreau's  time 
had  been  the  estate  of  Major  Barrett,  and  then 
of  a  New  York  broker  named  Wheeler,  whom 

[  426  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Thoreau  did  not  admire.  He  thus  describes,  in 
May,  1853,  this  incident  of  the  azalea,  and  his 
puzzle  over  it:  — 

Some  incidents  in  my  life  have  been  more  allegorical 
than  actual.  That  is,  I  have  been  more  impressed  by 
their  allegorical  significance  and  fitness;  they  have  been 
like  myths  or  passages  in  a  myth,  rather  than  mere 
incidents  of  history  which  have  to  wait  to  become 
significant.  (Quite  in  harmony  with  my  subjective 
philosophy.) 

This,  for  instance:  that  when  I  thought  I  knew  the 
flowers  so  well,  the  beautiful  purple  azalea  or  pinxter- 
flower  should  be  shown  me  by  [Melvin]  the  hunter  who 
found  it.  Such  facts  are  lifted  quite  above  the  level  of 
the  actual ;  perfectly  in  keeping  with  my  life  and  char 
acter.  Ever  and  anon  something  will  occur  which  my 
philosophy  has  not  dreamed  of.  The  boundaries  of  the 
actual  are  no  more  fixed  and  rigid  than  the  elasticity  of 
our  imaginations.  The  fact  that  a  rare  and  beautiful 
flower  which  we  never  saw,  perhaps  never  heard  of,  — 
for  which,  therefore,  there  was  no  place  in  our  thoughts, 
—  may  at  length  be  found  in  our  immediate  neighbor 
hood,  is  very  suggestive.1 

1  The  tone  here  savors  a  little  of  mortification  that  others  should 
know  more  of  rare  flowers  than  himself,  the  one  special  botanist  of 
the  town.  Miss  H.  reported  the  same  thing  about  the  hepatica 
which  she  showed  him;  and  the  Emerson  children  about  the  flower 
of  the  Linnsea,  which  they  found  in  the  park.  Of  the  characters  in 
this  village  drama,  Stedman  Buttrick  and  F.  R.  Gourgas  were 
Democratic  officials;  George  Brooks  and  his  father  were  Whig 
leaders;  and  Mrs.  Brooks  the  head  of  the  anti-slavery  women. 

F  427  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

May  31,  1853. 

Afternoon.  I  am  going  in  search  of  the  Azalea  nudi- 
fiora.  Sophia  brought  home  a  single  flower  from  Mrs. 
Brooks's  last  evening,  who  has  a  large  twig  in  a  vase  of 
water,  still  pretty  fresh,  which  she  says  George  Melvin 
gave  to  her  son  George  Brooks.  I  called  at  his  office. 
He  says  that  Melvin  came  in  to  Mr.  Francis  Gourgas's 
office,  where  he  and  others  were  sitting,  Saturday  eve 
ning,  with  his  arms  full,  and  gave  each  a  sprig,  but  he 
doesn  't  know  where  he  got  it.  Somebody,  I  heard,  had 
seen  it  at  Captain  Jarvis's;  so  I  went  there.  I  found 
they  had  some,  still  pretty  fresh,  in  the  house.  Melvin 
gave  it  to  them  Saturday  night,  but  they  did  not  know 
where  he  got  it.  A  young  man  at  Stedman  Buttrick's 
said  it  was  a  secret;  there  was  only  one  bush  in  the 
town;  Melvin  knew  of  it,  and  Stedman  knew;  when 
asked,  Melvin  said  he  got  it  in  the  swamp,  or  from  a 
bush,  etc. 

The  young  man  thought  it  grew  on  the  Island  across 
the  Assabet  on  the  Wheeler  Farm.  I  went  on  to  Mel- 
vin's  house,  though  I  did  not  expect  to  find  him  at 
home  at  this  hour,  so  early  in  the  afternoon.  At  length 
I  saw  his  dog  by  the  door,  and  knew  he  was  at  home. 
He  was  sitting  in  the  shade,  bareheaded,  at  the  back 
door.  He  had  a  large  pailful  of  the  azalea,  recently 
plucked,  and  in  the  shade  behind  his  house;  which  he 
said  he  was  going  to  carry  to  town  at  evening.  He  had 
also  a  sprig  set  out.  He  had  been  out  all  the  forenoon, 
and  said  he  had  got  seven  pickerel,  perhaps  ten.  Ap 
parently  he  had  been  drinking,  and  was  just  getting 

[428] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

over  it.  At  first  he  was  a  little  shy  about  telling  me 
where  the  azalea  grew;  but  I  saw  that  I  should  get  it 
out  of  him.  He  dilly-dallied  a  little;  called  to  his  neigh 
bor,  Jacob  Farmer  (whom  he  called  "Razor"),  to 
know  if  he  could  tell  me  where  that  flower  grew.  He 
called  it,  by  the  way,  the  "  red  honeysuckle."  This  was 
to  prolong  the  time  and  make  the  most  of  his  secret. 

I  felt  pretty  sure  the  plant  was  to  be  found  on  the 
Wheeler  Farm,  beyond  the  river,  as  the  young  man  had 
said;  for  I  had  remembered  how,  some  weeks  before 
this,  when  I  went  up  the  Assabet  after  the  yellow 
rocket,  I  saw  Melvin,  who  had  just  crossed  with  his 
dog;  and  when  I  landed,  to  pluck  the  rocket,  he  ap 
peared  out  of  the  woods,  said  he  was  after  a  fishpole, 
and  asked  me  the  name  of  my  flower.  Did  n't  think 
it  was  very  handsome,  —  "not  so  handsome  as  the 
honeysuckle,  is  it?"  And  now  I  knew  it  was  his  "red 
honeysuckle"  and  not  the  columbine  he  meant. 

Well,  I  told  him  he  had  better  tell  me  where  it  was; 
I  was  a  botanist,  and  ought  to  know.  But  he  thought 
I  could  not  possibly  find  it  by  his  directions.  I  told 
him  he'd  better  tell  me  and  have  the  glory  of  it,  for  I 
should  surely  find  it  if  he  didn't;  I'd  got  a  clue  to  it, 
and  should  n't  give  it  up.  I  should  go  over  the  river  for 
it.  "  I  can  smell  it  a  good  way,  you  know."  He  thought 
I  could  smell  it  half  a  mile;  and  he  wondered  that  I  or 
Channing  had  n't  stumbled  on  it.  "  Channing  did  come 
close  by  it  once,  when  it  was  in  flower,  and  I  thought 
he 'd  surely  find  it  then;  but  he  did  n't,  and  I  said  noth 
ing  to  him."  He  told  me  he  found  it  about  ten  years 
ago,  and  went  to  it  every  year  since.  "  It  blossoms  at 

[429] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

the  old  election  time,  last  o'  May,  and  is  the  hand 
somest  flower  that  grows." 

In  the  meanwhile  Farmer,  who  was  hoeing,  came  up 
to  the  wall,  and  we  fell  into  a  talk  about  Dodge's 
Brook,  near  by,  which  runs  through  his  farm.  A  man 
in  Cambridge,  he  said,  had  lately  written  to  old  Mr. 
Monroe  (a  neighbor)  about  it,  but  he  did  n't  know  why. 
All  he  did  know  about  the  brook  was  that  he  had  seen 
it  dry,  and  then  again,  after  a  week  of  dry  weather,  it 
would  be  full  again;  and  either  the  Cambridge  man  or 
Monroe  said  there  were  only  two  such  brooks  in  all 
North  America.  One  of  its  sources  —  he  said  the  prin 
cipal  one  —  is  in  his  land.  We  all  went  to  it.  It  was  in 
a  meadow,  rather  a  dry  one,  once  a  swamp.  He  said  it 
never  ceased  to  flow  at  this  head  now,  since  he  dug  it 
out;  and  never  froze  there.  Farmer  ran  a  pole  down 
eight  or  nine  feet  into  the  mud,  to  show  me  thexlepth. 
He  had  minnows  there  in  a  large,  deep  pool,  and  he 
cast  an  insect  into  the  water,  which  they  presently  rose 
to  and  swallowed.  Fifteen  years  ago  he  dug  it  out  nine 
feet  deep,  and  found  there  spruce  logs  as  big  as  his 
leg,  which  the  beavers  had  gnawed,  with  the  marks  of 
their  teeth  very  distinct  upon  them;  but  they  soon 
crumbled  away  on  coming  to  the  air.1 

1  This  conversation,  very  well  and  colloquially  reported,  is  typi 
cal  of  hundreds  such  that  Thoreau  held  with  the  farmers,  laborers, 
and  sportsmen  of  Concord  and  its  region.  "  Old  Mr.  Monroe"  was 
the  person  who  introduced  skilful  pencil-making  into  Concord; 
he  was  then  living  near  Jacob  Farmer's  farm,  which  was  in  a  ham 
let  where  there  had  been  a  hatter's  shop,  a  shoemaker's,  the  good 
brick  house  of  the  Hildreths,  and  George  Melvin's  homely  abode. 
Later  it  was  the  site  of  a  schoolhouse,  and  Mr.  Farmer  was  the 

[430] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Melvin,  meanwhile,  was  telling  me  of  a  pair  of  geese 
he  had  seen  which  were  breeding  in  the  Bedford  Cedar 
Swamp ;  he  had  seen  them  within  a  day.  Last  year  he 
got  a  large  brood  of  black  ducks  there,  —  eleven,  he 
said.  Melvin  and  I  and  his  dog  went  on  down  the 
brook,  and  crossed  the  Assabet  in  his  boat,  and  he 
conducted  me  to  where  the  Azalea  nudiflora  grew,  — • 
it  was  a  little  past  its  prime,  perhaps,  —  and  showed 
me  how  near  Channing  came  to  it.  ("You  won't  tell 
him  what  I  said,  will  you?")  I  offered  to  pay  him  for 
his  trouble,  but  he  would  n't  take  anything.  "I'd  just 
as  lief  you'd  know  as  not."  It  is  a  conspicuously 
beautiful  flowering  shrub,  with  the  sweet  fragrance  of 
the  common  swamp-pink;  but  the  flowers  are  larger, 
and  in  this  case,  a  fine,  lively  rosy  pink,  not  so  clammy 
as  the  other;  and,  being  earlier,  it  is  free  from  the  in 
sects  w^hich  often  infest  and  spoil  the  first.  Growing  in 
the  shade  of  large  wood,  like  the  laurel,  with  a  broader, 
somewhat  downy  pale  green  leaf.  Melvin  says  the 
gray  squirrel  nests  are  made  of  leaves,  the  red  squir 
rel's  of  pine  stuff.  Jarvis  tells  me  that  Stedman  But- 
trick  once  hired  Melvin  to  work  for  him,  on  condition 
that  he  should  not  take  his  gun  into  the  field;  but  he 
had  known  him  to  do  so  when  Buttrick  was  away,  and 

resident  committeeman.  At  a  school  examination  where  I  was  pres 
ent  officially,  as  secretary  of  the  School  Committee  of  1859,  when 
Mr.  Alcott  was  our  School  Superintendent,  I  heard  Jacob  Farmer 
make  this  speech:  "Children,  we  were  here  a  year  ago,  and  we 
looked  over  your  writin'  books;  and  we  thought  some  flies  had  got 
into  your  inkstands,  and  crawled  over  your  books.  We've  been 
looking  at  your  books  to-day,  and  we  conclude  that  you've  catched 
them  flies." 

f  431  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

earn  two  or  three  dollars  with  his  game,  beside  his 
day's  work;  but  of  course  that  was  neglected. 

June  10, 1853.  What  shall  this  great  wild  tract  over 
which  Channing  and  I  strolled  to-day  be  called?  Many 
farmers  have  pastures  there,  and  woodlots  and  or 
chards.  It  consists  mainly  of  rocky  pastures.  It  con 
tains  what  I  call  the  Boulder  Field,  the  Yellow  Birch 
Swamp,  the  Black  Birch  Hill,  the  Laurel  Pasture,  the 
Hog  Pasture,  the  White  Pine  Grove,  the  Easterbrooks 
Place,  the  Old  Lime  Kiln,  the  Lime  Quarries,  Spruce 
Swamp,  the  Ermine  Weasel  Woods;  also  the  Oak 
Meadows,  the  Cedar  Swamp,  the  Babbe  Place,  and  the 
old  place  northwest  of  Brooks  Clark's.  Ponkawtassett 
bounds  it  on  the  south.  There  are  a  few  frog-ponds 
and  an  old  mill-pond  within  it,  and  Bateman's  Pond 
on  its  edge.  Channing  proposes  to  call  it  the  Melvin 
Preserve,  for  it  is  favorite  hunting-ground  with  George 
Melvin.  It  is  a  sort  of  Robin  Hood  Ground.  The  old 
Carlisle  Road,  which  runs  through  the  middle  of  it,  is 
bordered  on  each  side  with  wild  apple  pastures,  where 
the  trees  stand  without  order,  having  sprung  up  by 
accident,  or  from  pomace  sown  at  random,  and  are  for 
the  most  part  concealed  by  birches  and  pines.  Many 
of  these  apple-trees,  growing  as  forest  trees,  bear  good 
crops.  It  is  a  paradise  for  walkers  in  the  fall.  It  would 
make  a  princely  estate  in  Europe;  yet  it  is  owned  by 
farmers  who  live  by  the  labor  of  their  hands,  and  do 
not  esteem  it  much. 

This  was  written  in  1853.  Four  years  later,  he 
still  called  it  "Melvin's  Preserve,"  and  there  met 

[  432  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Melvin,  not  gunning  nor  fishing,  but  nutting  and 
barberrying. 

Oct.  20,  1857.  He  had  got  two  baskets,  one  in  each 
hand,  and  his  game-bag,  which  hung  from  his  neck,  all 
full  of  nuts  and  barberries;  and  his  mouth  full  of  to 
bacco.  Trust  him  to  find  where  the  nuts  and  berries 
grow.  He  is  hunting  all  the  year,  and  he  marks  the 
bushes  and  the  trees  which  are  fullest;  and  when  the 
time  comes,  for  once  he  leaves  his  gun,  though  not  his 
dog,  at  home,  and  takes  his  baskets  to  the  spot.  It  is 
pleasanter  to  me  to  meet  him  with  his  gun  or  his  bas 
kets,  than  to  meet  some  portly  caterer  for  a  family, 
basket  on  arm,  at  the  stalls  of  Quincy  Market  in  Boston. 

What  a  wild  and  rich  domain  that  Easterbrooks 
Country !  Think  of  the  miles  of  huckleberries,  and  of 
barberries  and  of  wild  apples,  so  fair  both  in  flower  and 
fruit,  resorted  to  by  men  and  beasts!  There  are  bar 
berry  bushes  or  clumps  there,  behind  which  I  could 
actually  pick  two  bushels  of  berries,  without  being  seen 
by  you  on  the  other  side.  And  they  are  not  all  picked 
at  last,  by  all  creatures  together.  I  walk  for  two  or 
three  miles,  and  still  the  clumps  of  barberries,  —  great 
sheaves  with  their  wreaths  of  scarlet  fruit,  —  show 
themselves  before  me  and  on  every  side;  seeming  to 
issue  from  the  pines  and  other  trees,  as  if  it  were  they 
that  were  promenading  there,  not  I.  Melvin  tells  me 
that  S.  thinks  he  heard  a  wildcat  scream  in  Ebby  Hub- 
bard's  Wood,  by  the  Close. 

My  own  relations  were  not  very  close  either 
with  George  Melvin  or  with  George  Minott, — 

[433  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

the  double  t  in  this  name  seems  to  be  optional,  for  it 
is  written  both  ways.  But  I  was  introduced  to  two 
of  the  cronies  of  Thoreau  and  Channing  by  one  or 
both  of  my  new  friends,  when  I  first  went  to  live 
in  Channing's  house,  and  to  dine  daily  with  Tho 
reau.  One  of  these  was  Ebby  Hubbard,  just  men 
tioned,  aged  owner  of  some  of  the  finest  oak  and 
pine  forest  in  Concord,  of  whom  they  told  me  I 
should  buy  the  best  white-oak  cordwood  —  as 
I  did,  for  fuel  in  Channing's  stoves.  The  other 
was  Michael  Flannery,  industrious  Irishman  from 
Kerry,  who  would  honestly  saw  it  for  me,  and  do 
any  other  work  I  needed;  and  whom  I  continued 
to  employ  for  twenty  years.  Hubbard  was  another 
type  of  the  old  farmer  from  either  George  Minott 
or  Jacob  Farmer;  he  was  a  crooked,  crusty  old 
curmudgeon,  seldom  seen  except  in  a  blue  frock, 
and  living  in  one  of  the  oldest  village  houses,  with 
a  carpenter's  shop  attached,  in  which  he  seemed 
to  pass  most  of  the  time  he  was  not  working  in 
the  open  air,  cutting  or  carting  wood  from  his 
park,  near  Walden;  which  was  a  favorite  walk  of 
Emerson  and  his  children,  and  was  bought  by  his 
daughter  Mrs.  Forbes,  to  prevent  the  cutting-off 
of  noble  trees,  —  so  that  it  is  still,  in  verity,  a 
preserved  park.  Penurious  as  he  was,  Mr.  Hub 
bard  left  by  will  one  thousand  dollars  toward  a 

[  434  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

monument  to  the  patriots  in  the  Concord  Fight, 
to  be  placed  on  the  Concord  River  bank  where 
they  actually  stood  when  they 

"  Fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 

This  bequest  was  the  nest-egg  out  of  which  was 
hatched  the  world-famed  statue  of  the  Minute 
Man  by  French. 

Flannery,  on  the  other  hand,  was  the  spade- 
laborer  who  took  the  prize  at  the  cattle  show,  and 
had  it  taken  away  from  him  by  his  employer,  an 
other  Concord  farmer;  which  so  incensed  Thoreau 
that  he  collected  the  sum  among  his  neighbors  and 
paid  it  to  Mike,  whom  the  Thoreaus  ever  after 
ward  befriended.  When  Sophia  left  Concord  to 
live  and  die  in  Bangor,  among  her  cousins,  she 
gave  me  a  small  note  of  hand,  which  Flannery  had 
signed  for  money  lent  him  in  some  pinch,  with  in 
structions  to  receive  payment  if  he  was  able  to 
pay,  but  in  any  case  to  give  him  up  the  note, 
which  I  did.  This  is  a  sample,  one  of  many,  of  the 
relations  of  the  Thoreaus  with  the  poor;  and  those 
of  Channing,  though  more  capricious,  were  no  less 
generous. 

A  Fluvial  Walk  in  the  Assabet  Stream 

The  Concord  River  is  formed  by  the  confluence, 
at  the  promontory  of  Egg  Rock,  of  the  Assabet, 

[435] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

or  North  Branch,  sometimes  called  by  Thoreau 
the  "North  River,"  and  the  longer  and  more  navi 
gable  Sudbury  River,  in  which,  under  Lee's  Cliff, 
and  lying  between  Baker  Farm  and  Conantum,  is 
Fair  Haven  Pond,  a  bay  or  widening  of  the  stream. 
For  sailing,  the  Sudbury  answered  best,  but  for 
rowing  and  retirement,  the  Assabet;  in  itself  also 
more  picturesque,  and  in  Thoreau's  time  little  de 
filed  by  sewage  or  the  waste  of  woolen  factories. 
It  was  so  little  boated  then,  except  by  Thoreau 
and  Hawthorne  or  Channing,  that  it  gave  quiet 
bathing  in  three  or  four  places  of  deep  water.  At 
one  point,  behind  the  Indian  Hill  which  Thoreau 
carefully  spells  "  Nawshawtuct,"  is  a  ford  at  which 
these  walkers  crossed  it  in  going  to  the  more  dis 
tant  Anursnack,  and  if  it  were  summer,  we  often 
stripped  for  a  bath,  carrying  our  clothes  across  to 
the  northwestern  shore,  and  dressing  there  for 
the  farther  walk.  On  July  10,  1852,  a  very  hot 
day,  Thoreau  and  Channing  set  forth  "to  the 
North  River  in  front  of  Major  Barrett's."  This 
village  magnate,  who  had  been  State  Treasurer, 
and  had  hired  Alcott  as  a  haymaker,  had  owned 
the  great  Lee  farm,  now  broken  up  into  home 
steads  and  pastures.  The  Journal  of  that  date 
now  goes  on:  — 


436 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

The  long,  narrow,  open  intervals  in  the  woods  near 
the  Assabet  are  quite  dry  now.  One  of  these  meadows, 
a  quarter-mile  long  by  a  few  rods  wide,  narrow  and 
winding  and  bounded  on  all  sides  by  maples,  is  a  very 
attractive  place  to  walk  in.  We  undressed  on  the  south 
side,  carried  our  clothes  down  in  the  stream  a  consid 
erable  distance,  and  finally  bathed  in  earnest  from  the 
opposite  side.  The  heat  tempted  us  to  prolong  this 
luxury.  I  think  I  never  felt  the  water  so  warm,  yet  it 
was  not  disagreeably  so.  The  river  has  here  a  sandy 
bottom,  and  is  quite  shallow.  I  made  quite  an  excur 
sion  up  and  down  in  it  —  a  fluvial  walk.  It  seemed  the 
properest  highway  for  this  weather;  now  in  water  a 
foot  or  two  deep,  now  suddenly  descending  through 
valleys  up  to  my  neck,  but  all  alike  agreeable.  When 
I  had  left  the  river  and  walked  in  the  woods  for  some 
time,  then  jumped  into  the  river  again,  I  was  surprised 
to  find  how  warm  it  was,  —  as  it  seemed  to  me,  al 
most  warm  enough  to  boil  eggs,  —  like  water  that  has 
stood  in  a  kettle  over  a  fire. 

There  are  many  interesting  objects  of  study  as  you 
walk  up  and  down  a  clear  river  like  this,  in  the  water, 
where  you  can  see  every  inequality  in  the  bottom,  and 
every  object  on  it.  There  are  weeds  on  the  bottom 
which  remind  you  of  the  sea,  —  the  radical  leaves  of 
the  "Floating-heart,"  which  I  have  never  seen  men 
tioned;  very  large,  five  inches  long  and  four  wide,  dull 
claret,  and  green  where  freshest,  pellucid,  with  waved 
edges,  in  large  tufts  or  dimples  on  the  bottom.  It  is 
also  scored  by  clams  moving  about,  with  furrows 
sometimes  a  rod  long;  and  always  the  clam  lies  at  one 

[437] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

end.  So  this  fish  can  change  its  position  and  get  into 
deeper  and  cooler  water.  I  was  in  doubt  before  whether 
the  clam  made  these  furrows;  but  these,  which  were 
very  numerous,  had  living  clams  at  the  end. 

There  are  but  few  fishes  to  be  seen.  They  have,  no 
doubt,  retreated  to  the  deepest  water.  In  a  muddier 
place,  close  to  the  shore,  I  came  upon  an  old  pout 
cruising  with  her  young.  She  dashed  away  at  my  ap 
proach,  but  the  fry  remained.  They  were  of  various 
sizes  from  a  third  of  an  inch  to  an  inch  and  a  half  long, 
—  quite  black  and  pout-shaped,  except  that  the  head 
was  most  developed  in  the  smallest.  They  were  con 
stantly  moving  about  in  a  circular  or  rather  lenticular 
school,  fifteen  or  eighteen  inches  in  diameter;  and  I 
estimated  there  were  at  least  a  thousand.  Presently 
the  old  pout  came  back  and  took  the  lead  of  her  brood, 
which  followed  her,  or  rather  gathered  about  her,  like 
chickens  round  a  hen;  but  this  mother  had  so  many 
children  she  did  n't  know  what  to  do.  Her  maternal 
yearnings  must  be  on  a  great  scale.  When  one  half  of 
her  divided  school  found  her  out,  they  came  down 
upon  her  and  completely  invested  her  like  a  small 
cloud.  She  was  soon  joined  by  another  smaller  pout, 
apparently  her  mate;  and  all,  both  old  and  young, 
began  to  be  very  familiar  with  me;  they  came  round 
my  legs  and  felt  them  with  their  feelers,  and  the  old 
pouts  nibbled  my  toes,  while  the  fry  half  concealed 
my  feet.  Probably  if  I  had  been  standing  on  the  bank 
with  my  clothes  on  they  would  have  been  more  shy. 
Ever  and  anon  the  old  pouts  dashed  aside  to  drive 
away  a  passing  bream  or  perch.  The  larger  one  kept 

F  438  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

circling  about  her  charge,  as  if  to  keep  them  together. 
The  young  pouts  are  protected  thus  for  a  season  by 
the  old.  Some  had  evidently  been  hatched  before  the 
others. 

I  wonder  if  any  Roman  emperor  ever  indulged  in 
such  luxury  as  this?  walking  up  and  down  a  river  in 
torrid  weather,  with  only  a  hat  to  shade  the  head. 
What  were  the  baths  of  Caracalla  to  this?  Now  we 
traverse  a  long  water-plain,  some  two  feet  deep:  now 
we  descend  into  a  darker  river-valley,  where  the  bot 
tom  is  lost  sight  of;  now  we  go  over  a  hard  iron  pan, 
now  we  stoop,  and  go  under  a  low  bough  of  the  Salix 
nigra;  now  we  slump  into  soft  mud  amid  the  pads  of 
the  Nymphcea  odorata,  at  this  hour  shut.  On  this  road 
there  is  no  other  traveller  to  turn  out  for.  We  finally 
return  to  the  dry  land,  and  recline  in  the  shade  of  an 
apple  tree  on  a  bank  overlooking  the  meadow. 

July  12,  2  P.M.  Now  for  another  fluvial  walk.  There 
is  always  a  current  of  air  above  the  water,  blowing  up 
or  down  the  course  of  the  river;  so  that  this  is  the 
coolest  highway.  Divesting  yourself  of  all  clothing 
but  your  shirt  and  hat,  which  are  to  protect  you  from 
the  sun,  you  are  prepared  for  the  excursion.  You 
choose  what  depths  you  like,  tucking  your  toga  higher 
or  lower,  as  you  take  the  deep  middle  of  the  road,  or 
the  shallow  sidewalks.  Here  is  a  road  where  no  dust 
was  ever  known,  no  intolerable  drouth.  Now  your  feet 
expand  on  a  smooth  sandy  bottom,  now  contract 
timidly  on  pebbles,  now  slump  in  genial  fatty  mud, 
amid  the  pads.  You  scare  out  whole  schools  of  small 
breams  and  perch,  and  sometimes  a  pickerel,  which 

[  439  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

have  taken  refuge  from  the  sun  under  the  pads.  Or 
you  meet  with  and  interrupt  a  turtle,  taking  a  more 
leisurely  walk  up  the  stream.  Ever  and  anon  you  cross 
some  furrow  in  the  sand  made  by  a  muskrat,  leading 
off  to  their  galleries  in  the  bank;  and  you  thrust  your 
foot  into  the  entrance,  which  is  just  below  the  surface 
of  the  water,  and  strewn  with  grass  and  rushes,  of 
which  they  make  their  nests.  In  shallow  water  near 
the  shore  your  feet  at  once  detect  the  presence  of 
springs  in  the  bank  emptying  in,  by  the  sudden  cold 
ness  of  the  water.  There,  if  you  are  thirsty,  you  dig  a 
little  well  in  the  sand  with  your  hands,  and  when  you 
return,  after  it  has  settled  and  clarified  itself,  you  get  a 
draught  of  pure  cold  water  there. 

It  is  an  objection  to  walking  in  the  mud,  that  from 
time  to  time  you  have  to  pick  the  leeches  off  you.  I 
noticed  a  large  snapping  turtle  on  one  of  the  dark- 
brown  rocks  in  the  middle  of  the  river  (apparently  for 
coolness)  in  company  with  a  painted  tortoise, — so  com 
pletely  the  color  of  the  rock,  that  if  it  had  not  been 
for  his  head,  curved  upward  to  a  point  from  anxiety,  I 
should  not  have  detected  him.  Thus  Nature  subjects 
them  to  the  same  circumstances  with  the  stones,  and 
paints  them  alike,  as  with  one  brush,  for  their  safety. 
That  this  luxury  of  walking  in  the  river  may  be  perfect, 
it  must  be  very  warm,  such  as  are  few  days  even  in  this 
July;  so  that  the  breeze  on  those  parts  that  have  just 
been  immersed  may  not  produce  the  least  chilliness. 

Socrates,  barefoot,  paddling  in  the  shallow 
Ilissus  at  Athens,  was  not  more  a  philosopher 

[  440  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

than  this  surveyor  of  the  roads  of  clams  and 
muskrats. 

Family  Memories 

Like  most  of  us,  Henry  Thoreau  had  a  very 
mixed  ancestry,  which  has  not  yet  been  traced 
very  far  back.  His  aunt  Maria,  the  last  American 
Thoreau,  gave  me  by  letter  in  1878  the  names  of 
such  forefathers  as  she  had  heard  of  in  the  eight 
eenth  century,  when  she  was  herself  born.  Her 
great-grandmother  Tillet,  who  seems  to  have  been 
of  Huguenot  descent,  married  a  Boston  Quaker, 
David  Orrok,  and  her  daughter,  Sarah  Orrok, 
married  a  Scotchman  from  Stirlingshire  named 
Burns,  who  died  in  Scotland.  Jane  Burns,  his 
daughter,  married  the  first  American  Thoreau  in 
Boston  (John,  the  grandfather  of  Henry),  in  1781, 
and  died  there  in  1796,  leaving  eight  children,  of 
whom  Maria  was  the  youngest.  Jane  Burns  was 
born  in  1754,  the  same  year  with  her  husband, 
who  outlived  her  by  five  years,  and  died  in  Con 
cord  when  his  son  John,  father  of  Henry,  was 
fourteen;  who  therefore  remembered  him  well,  as 
did  Henry's  aunt  Elizabeth,  who  was  older.  On 
his  mother's  side  Henry  could  trace  descent  far 
ther  back,  through  Joneses  and  Dunbars,  of  the 
Old  Colony  of  Plymouth;  but  not,  like  his  friend 

[441  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

John  Brown,  of  Mayflower  ancestry.  The  Tillets 
had  been  slave-owners,  like  many  persons  of  prop 
erty  in  Massachusetts  before  the  Revolution;  and 
by  both  sides  Henry  inherited  traditions  of  gen 
tility.  His  grandfather's  cousin,  John  Thoreau, 
was  an  officer  in  the  British  army,  and  one  of  his 
grandmother's  brothers,  Jonas  Jones,  died  as  an 
officer  of  that  army  in  England,  after  our  Revolu 
tion.  With  this  premised,  I  quote  some  of  the 
memories  preserved  in  the  Journals:  — 

Jan.  23,  1858.  Mrs.  William  Monroe  1  told  Sophia 
last  evening  that  she  remembered  our  grandfather 
Thoreau  very  well;  he  was  taller  than  Father,  and  used 
to  ride  out  to  their  house  when  they  made  cheeses,  to 
drink  the  whey.  She  was  a  Stone,  and  lived  where  she 
and  her  husband  did  afterward,  now  Darius  Meri- 
am's.  She  said  she  remembered  Grandmother,  too, 
Jennie  Burns,  —  how  she  came  to  the  schoolroom  in 
Boston,  once  (perhaps  in  Middle  Street),  leading  her 
little  daughter  Elizabeth,  the  latter  so  small  that  she 
could  not  tell  her  name  distinctly,  but  spoke  thick 
and  lispingly,  —  "Elizabeth  Orrok  Thoreau." 

Feb.  7,  1858.  Aunt  Louisa  Dunbar  has  talked  with 
Mrs.  Monroe,  and  I  can  correct  or  add  to  my  account. 
She  says  that  she  was  then  only  three  or  four  years  old, 
and  that  she  went  to  school  somewhere  in  Boston,  with 

1  This  was  the  wife  of  "old  Mr.  Monroe"  mentioned  on  pp.  211, 
212,  and  the  mother  of  William  Monroe,  who  gave  the  library  and 
art  gallery  to  Concord. 

[443] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Aunt  Elizabeth  and  one  other  child,  to  a  woman 
named  Turner,  who  kept  a  spinning-wheel  a-going 
while  she  taught  these  three  little  children.  She  re 
members  that  one  sat  on  a  lignum-vitse  mortar,  turned 
bottom  upward,  another  on  a  box,  and  the  third  on  a 
stool;  and  then  she  repeated  the  story  of  Jennie  Burns 
bringing  her  little  daughter  to  the  school,  as  before. 

Feb.  8.  Mrs.  Monroe  says  that  her  mother,  Mrs. 
Stone,  respected  my  grandfather  Thoreau  very  much, 
because  he  was  a  religious  man.  She  remembers  his 
calling  one  day  and  inquiring  where  blue  vervain  grew, 
which  he  wanted  to  make  a  syrup  for  his  cough;  and 
she,  a  girl,  happening  to  know,  ran  and  gathered  some. 

October,  1856.  Father  told  me  about  his  father  the 
other  night,  who  died  in  1801,  aged  forty-seven.  When 
the  Revolutionary  war  came  on,  he  was  apprentice 
or  journeyman  to  a  cooper  in  Boston,  who  employed 
many  hands.  He  called  them  together  and  told  them 
that,  on  account  of  the  war,  his  business  was  ruined, 
and  he  had  no  more  work  for  them.  So  my  father 
thinks  he  went  into  privateering.  Yet  he  remembers 
his  telling  him  of  being  employed  digging  at  some  de 
fences,  when  a  cannon-ball  came  and  sprinkled  sand 
all  over  them.1  After  the  war  he  went  into  business  as 

1  This  may  have  been  at  the  earthworks  thrown  up  around  Bos 
ton  here  and  there,  after  the  Concord  Fight,  in  which  several  of 
Henry's  Jones  uncles  took  part  on  the  Tory  side.  The  "cooper" 
was  an  outfitter  for  vessels,  and  it  was  the  closing  of  the  port  of 
Boston  by  the  British  navy,  before  active  hostilities,  that  ruined 
his  business,  and  furnished  the  Colonies  with  experienced  priva- 
teersmen.  Mention  has  already  been  made  of  John  Thoreau  as  a 
privateer;  he  laid  the  foundation  of  his  small  fortune  in  that  sort 
of  piracy,  for  he  inherited  nothing  from  his  family  in  Jersey,  save, 

[  443  ] 


HENRY   DAVID    THOREAU 

a  merchant,  commencing  with  a  single  hogshead  of 
sugar.  His  shop  was  on  Long  Wharf.  He  was  a  short 
man,  a  little  taller  than  Father,  stout,  and  very  strong 
for  his  size.  Levi  Melcher,  a  powerful  man,  who  was 
his  clerk  or  tender,  used  to  tell  my  father  that  he  did 
not  believe  himself  so  strong  a  man  as  Grandfather, 
who  would  never  give  in  to  him  in  handling  a  hogshead 
of  molasses, — setting  it  on  its  head,  or  the  like.  Father 
remembers  his  father  used  to  breakfast  before  the 
family  at  one  time,  and  he  with  him,  on  account  of  his 
business.  His  father  used  to  eat  the  undercrusts  of 
biscuits,  and  the  boy  the  upper. 

Dec.  28,  1858.  Father  says  that  he  and  his  sisters 
except  Elizabeth,  were  born  in  a  house  in  Richmond 
Street,  Boston,  between  Salem  and  Hanover  Streets, 
on  the  spot  where  a  Bethel  now  stands,  on  the  left  hand 
going  from  Hanover  Street.  They  had  milk  of  a  neigh 
bor,  who  used  to  drive  his  cows  to  and  from  the  Com 
mon  every  day.  Aunt  Jane  says  that  she  was  born  on 
Christmas  Day,  and  they  called  her  a  Christmas  gift. 
She  remembers  hearing  that  her  aunt,  Hannah  Orrok, 
was  so  disconcerted  by  the  event  that  she  threw  all  the 
spoons  outdoors,  after  she  had  washed  them,  or  with 
the  dishwater. 

Feb.  3,  1859.   After  a  sickness  of  some  two  years, 

possibly,  some  advantages  in  his  subsequent  trading.  His  clerk, 
Levi  Melcher,  of  an  old  New  Hampshire  family  in  Rockingham 
County,  was  one  of  my  mother's  uncles,  whom  I  remember  well. 
He  made  a  fortune  in  the  same  business  as  John  Thoreau  did,  and  . 
could  he  have  been  spared  a  few  years  longer,  the  Thoreaus  might 
have  been  among  the  wealthy  Boston  families.  His  early  death  and 
his  large  family  consumed  his  wealth,  but  his  children  inherited  his 
frugality. 

f  444  1 


JANE  THOREAU 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

going  down  town  in  pleasant  weather,  doing  a  little 
business  from  time  to  time,  hoeing  a  little  in  the  gar 
den,  etc.,  Father  took  to  his  chamber  January  13,  and 
did  not  come  down  again.  He  died  five  minutes  before 
3  P.M.,  February  3.  Most  of  the  time  previously  he  had 
coughed  and  expectorated  a  great  deal;  latterly  he  did 
not  cough.  He  continued  to  sit  up  in  his  chamber  till 
within  a  week  before  he  died.  He  sat  up  for  a  little 
while  on  the  Sunday  four  days  before  he  died.  Gen 
erally  he  was  very  silent  for  many  months.  He  was 
quite  conscious  to  the  last,  and  his  death  was  so  easy 
that  we  should  not  have  been  aware  that  he  was  dying, 
though  we  were  sitting  around  his  bed,  if  we  had  not 
watched  very  closely. 

I  have  touched  a  body  that  was  flexible  and  warm, 
yet  tenantless  —  warmed  by  what  fire?  When  the  spirit 
that  animated  some  matter  has  left  it,  who  else,  what 
else,  can  animate  it?  The  matter  which  composed  the 
body  of  our  first  human  father  still  exists  under  another 
name.  When  in  sickness  the  expression  of  the  face  in 
various  ways  is  changed,  you  perceive  unexpected  re 
semblances  to  other  members  of  the  same  family;  as  if 
within  the  same  family  there  was  greater  general 
similarity  in  the  framework  of  the  face  than  in  its  fill 
ing  up  and  clothing. 

Father  came  to  this  town  to  live  with  his  father  and 
stepmother,  just  after  the  close  of  the  last  century, 
when  he  was  upwards  of  twelve  years  old.  Afterwards 
he  went  to  the  Lexington  Academy  a  short  time,  per 
haps  a  year;  then  into  Deacon  White's  store  as  clerk; 
then  learned  the  dry-goods  business  in  a  store  in 

[445] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

Salem.  Aunt  Jane  shows  me  a  letter  from  him,  di 
rectly  after  his  going  there,  dated  1807.  He  was  then 
with  a  Hathaway.  He  came  of  age  in  1808,  and  soon 
after  opened  a  store  for  himself,  on  the  corner  where 
the  Town  House  now  stands,  in  a  yellow  building  since 
moved  and  altered  into  John  Keyes's  house.  He  did  so 
well  there  that  Isaac  Hurd  went  into  partnership  with 
him,  to  his  injury.  They  soon  dissolved  partnership, 
but  could  not  settle  without  going  to  law,  when  my 
father  gained  his  case,  bringing  his  account  books  into 
court.  Then,  I  think,  he  went  to  Bangor  and  "set  up" 
with  Billings,  selling  to  the  Indians  among  others; 
married  here  [1812],  lived  a  while  in  Boston,  wrote 
thence  to  the  aunts  at  Bangor  in  1815,  with  John  on 
his  knee.  He  moved  to  Concord,  where  I  was  born; 
then  to  Chelmsford,  to  Boston,  to  Concord  again,  — 
and  here  remained.  Mother  first  came  to  Concord 
with  her  mother  about  the  same  age  and  time  that 
Father  did,  but  a  little  before  him.1 

As  far  as  I  know,  Father,  when  he  died,  was  not  only 
one  of  the  oldest  men  in  the  middle  of  Concord,  but  the 
one  perhaps  best  acquainted  with  the  inhabitants,  and 
the  local,  social,  and  street  history  of  the  village  for  the 
last  fifty  years.  He  belonged  in  a  peculiar  sense  to  the 
village  street;  loved  to  sit  in  the  shops  or  at  the  post- 
office,  and  read  the  daily  papers.  I  think  that  he  re 
membered  more  about  the  worthies  (and  un worthies)  of 

1  We  have  more  exact  dates  now  than  Henry  had  in  noting  down 
these  facts  in  his  father's  life.  The  courts  and  the  record  of  wills 
and  mortgages  supply  us  with  the  chronology.  John  Thoreau  had 
married  the  widow  Kettell,  before  migrating  to  Concord  from  the 
North  End  of  Boston,  in  search  of  health,  in  1800. 

[  446  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Concord  Village,  forty  years  ago  —  both  from  dealing 
as  a  trader,  and  from  familiar  intercourse  with  them  — 
than  any  one  else.  Our  neighbors,  now  living  or  very 
recently  dead,  have  either  come  to  the  town  more  re 
cently  than  he,  or  have  lived  more  aloof  from  the  mass 
of  the  inhabitants. 

Writing  to  Daniel  Ricketson,  who  had  written 
that  he  much  respected  John  Thoreau,  and  was 
"much  impressed  with  his  good  sense,  his  fine 
social  nature,  and  his  genuine  hospitality,"  Tho 
reau  replied :  — 

I  am  glad  to  read  what  you  say  of  his  social  nature. 
I  think  I  may  say  that  he  was  wholly  unpretending. 
And  there  was  this  peculiarity  in  his  aim,  that  though 
he  had  pecuniary  difficulties  to  contend  with  the 
greater  part  of  his  life,  he  always  studied  how  to  make 
a  good  article,  pencil  or  other  (for  he  practised  various 
arts)  and  was  never  satisfied  with  what  he  had  pro 
duced.  Nor  was  he  ever  disposed  in  the  least  to  put 
off  a  poor  one  for  the  sake  of  pecuniary  gain.  As  I  sat 
in  a  circle  the  other  evening  with  my  mother  and 
sister,  my  mother's  two  sisters,  and  my  father's  two 
sisters,  —  it  occurred  to  me  that  my  father,  though 
71,  belonged  to  the  youngest  four  of  the  eight  who 
recently  composed  our  family. 

Charles  Dunbar:  Thoreau's  Uncle 

An  entirely  different  element  from  the  quiet, 
conservative,  serene  element  of  the  Thoreau  na- 

[  447  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

ture,  was  that  of  the  loud-voiced,  eccentric  Dun- 
bars,  mingling  with  the  genteel,  acquisitive  Jones 
strain,  which  combined  in  the  union  of  Mary 
Jones  with  Asa  Dunbar  in  the  Revolutionary  era, 
at  Salem,  Weston,  and  Keene;  and  found  its  gro 
tesque  culmination  in  Charles  Dunbar,  the  only 
brother  of  Thoreau's  mother,  Cynthia  Dunbar. 
Everybody  has  remarked  on  the  paradoxical  mind 
and  utterances  of  Thoreau;  but  the  paradox  ex 
isted  in  his  heredity,  before  it  displayed  itself  in 
his  thinking. 

Charles  Dunbar,  the  first  surviving  child  of 
Rev.  Asa  Dunbar's  marriage  to  Colonel  Jones's 
only  daughter  in  1772,  was  born  at  Weston  in 
1780,  but  spent  his  boyhood  in  Keene,  New  Hamp 
shire,  in  Maine,  and  in  Concord,  after  his  mother 
remarried  Captain  Jonas  Minot  there  at  the  end 
of  the  eighteenth  century.  His  nephew  said  of 
him:  —  / 

March  28,  1856.  Uncle  Charles  buried  at  Haverhill. 
He  was  born  in  February,  1780,  the  winter  of  the  Great 
Snow,  and  he  died  in  the  winter  of  another  great  snow, 
—  a  life  bounded  by  great  snows.  He  grew  up  to  be  a 
remarkably  eccentric  man,  of  large  frame,  athletic, 
and  celebrated  for  his  feats  of  strength.  His  lungs  were 
proportionably  strong.  A  man  heard  him  named  once, 
and  asked  if  it  was  the  same  Charles  Dunbar  whom  he 
remembered  when  he  was  a  little  boy,  walking  on  the 

[  448  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

coast  of  Maine.  A  man  came  down  to  the  shore  and 
hailed  a  vessel  that  was  sailing  by.  He  should  never 
forget  that  man's  name. 

I  remember  Charles  Dunbar  in  his  old  age, 
seventy-five,  at  his  sister's  table  in  Concord,  an 
amusing  guest,  whom  his  nephew  plied  with  ques 
tions.  According  to  Thoreau  in  "  Walden"  (then 
a  new  book),  he  went  to  sleep  shaving  himself, 
and  was  obliged  to  sprout  potatoes  in  a  cellar 
Sunday,  in  order  to  keep  awake  and  keep  the  Sab 
bath.  It  was  the  era  of  Potter,  the  ventriloquist 
and  magician,  who  settled  at  Andover,  New 
Hampshire,  and  seems  to  have  been  an  illegiti 
mate  scion  of  the  family  of  Sir  Charles  Frankland, 
a  descendant  of  Oliver  Cromwell.  Charles  Dun- 
bar  emulated  Potter,  and  was  known  by  his  jug 
gler's  tricks.  Thoreau  says  of  him:  — 

Ever  since  I  knew  him  he  could  swallow  his  nose. 
One  of  his  tricks  was  to  swallow  the  knives  and  forks 
and  some  of  the  plates  at  a  tavern  table,  and  offer  to 
give  them  up  if  the  landlord  would  charge  nothing  for 
his  meal.  He  could  do  anything  with  cards,  yet  did  not 
gamble.  Uncle  Charles  should  have  been  in  Concord 
in  1843,  when  Daniel  Webster  was  there.  What  a 
whetter-up  of  his  memory  that  event  would  have  been! 
[Imitates  his  uncle]:  "And  Seth  Hunt  and  Bob  Smith, 
—  he  was  a  student  of  my  father's  and  where 's  Put 
now?  Webster's  a  smart  fellow,  —  bears  his  age  well. 

[449] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

How  old  should  you  think  he  was?    Does  he  look  as  if 
he  were  two  years  younger  than  I?" 

Such  was  the  fact  —  and  somewhere  the  jug 
gling  grandson  of  Colonel  Jones,  of  Weston,  and 
the  statesman  son  of  Captain  Webster,  of  Salis 
bury,  had  associated  in  youth.  Thoreau  wrote 
in  1853:  — 

Jan.  1.  After  talking  with  Uncle  Charles  the  other 
night  about  the  worthies  of  the  country,  Webster  and 
the  rest,  as  usual,  —  considering  who  were  genuine 
and  who  not,  —  I  showed  him  up  to  bed;  and  when  I 
had  got  into  bed  myself,  I  heard  his  chamber  door 
open  after  eleven  o'clock;  and  he  called  out,  in  an  earn 
est,  stentorian  voice,  loud  enough  to  wake  the  whole 
house,  —  "  Henry !  was  John  Quincy  Adams  a  genius?  " 
"No,  I  think  not,"  was  my  reply.  "Well,  I  didn't 
think  he  was,"  answered  he. 

Polyphemus  Goodwin  and  George  Melvin 

Thoreau's  collection  of  river  driftwood  for  fuel 
and  for  bookcases  to  hold  his  Oriental  volumes 
from  Cholmondeley  is  well-known.  But  the  hint 
of  it  seems  to  have  been  taken  from  the  similar 
industry  of  John  Goodwin,  of  dubious  reputation 
among  men,  the  one-eyed  hunter  and  fisher,  whom 
Channing  called  "Polyphemus,"  and  George 
Melvin  "Pinkeye";  of  whom  in  October,  1853, 
Thoreau  had  this  to  say:  — 

[  450  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Yesterday,  toward  night,  I  gave  Sophia  and  Mother 
a  sail  as  far  as  the  Battle-Ground.  One-eyed  John 
Goodwin,  the  fisherman,  was  loading  into  a  handcart 
and  conveying  home  the  piles  of  driftwood  which  of 
late  he  had  collected  with  his  boat.  It  was  a  beautiful 
evening,  and  a  clear  amber  sunset  lit  up  all  the  eastern 
shores;  and  that  man's  employment,  so  simple  and  di 
rect  (though  he  is  regarded  by  most  as  a  vicious  char 
acter),  whose  whole  motive  was  so  easy  to  fathom,  — 
thus  to  obtain  his  winter's  wood,  —  charmed  me  un 
speakably.  So  much  do  we  love  actions  that  are  sim 
ple.  They  are  all  poetic.  We  too  would  fain  be  so  em 
ployed.  So  unlike  are  the  pursuits  of  most  men,  so 
artificial  or  complicated. 

Consider  how  the  broker  collects  his  winter's  wood, 
—  what  sport  he  makes  of  it,  —  what  is  his  boat  and 
handcart!  Postponing  instant  life,  he  makes  haste  to 
Boston  in  the  cars,  and  there  deals  in  stocks  (not  quite 
relishing  his  employment),  and  so  earns  the  money 
with  which  he  buys  his  fuel.  And  when  by  chance  I 
meet  him  about  this  indirect  and  complicated  business, 
I  am  not  struck  with  the  beauty  of  his  employment. 
It  does  not  harmonize  with  the  sunset.  How  much  more 
the  former  consults  his  genius,  —  some. genius,  at  any 
rate!  Now  I  should  love  to  get  my  fuel  so;  I  have  got 
some  so:  but  though  I  may  be  glad  to  have  it,  I  do  not 
love  to  get  it  in  any  other  way  less  simple  and  direct. 
No  trade  is  simple,  but  artificial  and  complex.  It  post 
pones  life  and  substitutes  death.  I  will  never  believe 
that  it  is  the  descendants  of  tradesmen  who  keep  the 
state  alive,  —  but  of  simple  yeomen  or  laborers.  This 

[  451  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

simplicity  it  is,  and  the  vigor  it  imparts,  that  enables 
the  simple  vagabond,  though  he  does  get  drunk  and  is 
sent  to  the  House  of  Correction,  so  often,  to  hold  up 
his  head  among  men. 

Goodwin  is  a  most  constant  fisherman.  When  I  can 
remember  to  have  seen  him  fishing  almost  daily  for 
some  time,  if  it  rains  I  am  surprised,  on  looking  out,  to 
see  him  slowly  wending  his  way  to  the  river  in  his  oil 
cloth  coat,  with  his  basket  and  pole.  I  saw  him  the 
other  day  fishing  in  the  middle  of  the  stream,  the  day 
after  I  had  seen  him  fishing  on  the  shore;  while  by  a 
kind  of  magic  I  sailed  by  him,  and  he  said  he  was 
catching  minnow  for  bait  in  the  winter.  When  I  was 
twenty  rods  off  he  held  up  a  pickerel  that  weighed 
two  and  one-half  pounds,  which  he  had  forgot  to  show 
me  before;  and  the  next  morning,  as  he  afterwards 
told  me,  he  caught  one  that  weighed  three  pounds. 
If  it  is  ever  necessary  to  appoint  a  committee  on  fish 
ponds  and  pickerel,  let  him  be  one  of  them.  Surely  he 
is  tenacious  of  life,  —  hard  to  scale. 

Nov.  1, 1858.  As  I  stood  on  Poplar  Hill,  I  saw  a  man 
far  off,  by  the  edge  of  the  river,  splitting  billets  off  a 
stump.  Suspecting  who  it  was,  I  took  out  my  glass, 
and  beheld  Goodwin,  the  one-eyed  Ajax,  in  his  short 
blue  frock,  getting  his  winter's  wood;  for  this  is  one  of 
the  phenomena  of  the  season.  As  surely  as  the  ants 
which  he  disturbs  go  into  winter  quarters  in  the  stumps, 
when  the  weather  becomes  cool,  so  does  G.  revisit  the 
stumpy  shores  with  his  axe.  As  usual,  his  powder  flask 
peeped  out  from  a  pocket  on  his  breast,  his  gun  was 
slanted  over  a  stump  near  by,  and  his  boat  lay  a  little 

[  452  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

further  along.  He  had  been  at  work  laying  wall  still 
further  off,  and  now,  near  the  end  of  the  day,  betook 
himself  to  those  pursuits  which  he  loved  better  still. 
It  would  be  no  amusement  to  me  to  see  a  gentleman 
buy  his  winter  wood.  It  is  to  see  Goodwin  get  his.  I 
helped  him  tip  over  a  stump  or  two.  He  said  the  owner 
of  the  land  had  given  him  leave  to  grub  up  those 
stumps;  but  it  seemed  to  me  a  condescension  for  him 
to  ask  any  man's  leave.  The  stumps  to  those  who  can 
use  them,  I  say,  —  to  those  who  will  split  them.  Near 
by  were  large  hollows  in  the  ground,  now  grassed  over, 
where  he  had  got  out  white  oak  stumps  in  previous 
years.  But,  strange  to  say,  the  town  does  not  like  to 
have  him  get  his  fuel  in  this  way.  They  would  rather 
the  stumps  would  rot  in  the  ground,  or  be  floated 
down  stream  to  the  sea.  They  would  have  him  stick 
to  laying  wall,  and  buy  corded  wood  as  they  do. 

I  guessed  at  Goodwin's  age.  He  is  hale  and  stout, 
and  looks  younger  than  he  is,  and  I  took  care  to  set 
him  high  enough.  I  guessed  he  was  fifty-five,  and  he 
said  that  if  he  lived  two  or  three  months  longer  he 
would  be  fifty-six.  He  then  guessed  at  my  age;  thought 
I  was  forty.  [Really  forty-one.]  He  thought  Emerson 
was  a  very  young-looking  man  for  his  age  [fifty-five]. 
"But  he  has  not  been  out  o'  nights  as  much  as  you 
have."  [Nov.  8.]  Goodwin,  laying  wall  at  Miss  Ripley's, 
observed  to  me  going  by,  "Well,  it  seems [a  ras 
cal]  thought  he  had  lived  long  enough."  He  had  lately 
committed  suicide  in  Sudbury.  In  revenge  for  being 
sent  to  the  House  of  Correction,  he  had  set  several  fires. 

Goodwin  cannot  be  a  very  bad  man,  he  is  so  cheery. 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

It  is  evident  that  Thoreau  was  truly  friendly 
with  these  hunters;  they  sympathized  more  than 
they  disagreed.  Mrs.  Thoreau  once  described  her 
son  as  "very  tolerant,"  and  that  perhaps  was  as 
near  a  description  as  a  single  adjective  could  bring 
you.  It  requires  a  long  list  of  them  to  portray 
him  fully. 

Friendship  Analyzed 

Of  all  the  thousand  topics  about  which  he 
thought  and  wrote,  in  the  rich  wilderness  of  his 
twenty  volumes  as  they  stand  on  the  shelves 
of  his  principal  publisher,  none  returned  to  his 
thought  and  his  anxieties  so  often  as  Friendship. 
A  few  of  the  many  forms  in  which  he  sketched 
that  fascinating  torment,  that  unsatisfied  ideal, 
may  here  be  given:  — 

Nov.  3,  1858.  How  long  we  will  follow  an  illusion! 
On  meeting  that  one  whom  I  call  my  friend,  I  find  I  had 
imagined  something  that  was  not  there.  I  am  sure  to 
depart  sadder  than  I  came.  Nothing  makes  me  so  de 
jected  as  to  have  met  my  friends;  for  they  make  me 
doubt  if  it  is  possible  to  have  any  friends.  I  feel  what 
a  fool  I  am.  I  cannot  conceive  of  persons  more  strange 
to  me  than  they  actually  are:  not  thinking,  not  be 
lieving,  not  doing  as  I  do, — interrupted  by  me.  My 
only  distinction  must  be,  that  I  am  the  greatest  bore 
they  ever  had.  Not  in  a  single  thought  we  agreed, 

f  454  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

regularly  balking  one  another.  But  when  I  get  far 
away,  my  thoughts  return  to  them.  That  is  the  way 
I  can  visit  them.  Thus  I  am  taught  that  my  friend  is 
not  an  actual  person.  When  I  have  withdrawn  and  am 
alone,  I  forget  the  actual  person  and  remember  only 
my  ideal.  Then  I  have  a  friend  again. 

I  am  not  so  ready  to  perceive  the  same  illusion  that 
is  in  Nature.  I  certainly  come  nearer,  to  say  the  least, 
to  an  actual  and  joyful  intercourse  with  her.  Every 
day  I  have  more  or  less  communion  with  her,  —  as 
I  think.  At  least  I  do  not  feel  as  if  I  must  withdraw 
out  of  Nature.  I  feel  like  a  welcome  guest.  Yet, 
strictly  speaking,  the  same  must  be  true  of  Nature 
and  of  Man,  our  ideal  is  the  only  real.  It  is  not  the 
finite  and  temporal  that  satisfies  or  concerns  us  in 
either  case. 

I  associate  the  idea  of  Friendship,  methinks,  with 
the  person  the  most  foreign  to  me.  We  are  attracted 
toward  a  particular  person;  but  no  one  has  discovered 
the  laws  of  this  attraction.  When  I  come  nearest  to 
that  other  actually,  I  am  wont  to  be  surprised  at  my 
selection.  It  may  be  enough  that  we  have^met  some 
time,  and  now  can  never  forget  it.  Some  time  or  other 
we  paid  each  other  this  wonderful  compliment,  — 
looked  largely,  humanly,  divinely  on  one  another;  and 
now  are  fated  to  be  acquaintances  forever.  In  the  case 
of  Nature  I  am  not  so  conscious  of  this  unsatisfied 
yearning. 

This  may  be  called  the  profoundest  analysis 
of  friendship  that  has  yet  been  published;  yet 

[  455  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

the  simplest  expression  of  the  sentiment  is  as 
suggestive.  He  returned  to  the  subject  the  next 
February,  after  reading  Miss  Shepard's  "Counter 
parts,"  which  Emerson  thought  might  have  been 
written  by  his  fanciful  friend,  Charles  Newcomb, 
in  Paris :  — 

Its  illustration  of  Love  and  Friendship  is  very  inter 
esting,  as  showing  how  much  we  can  know  of  each 
other  through  sympathy  merely,  without  any  of  the 
ordinary  information.  You  know  about  a  person  who 
interests  you  deeply  more  than  you  can  be  told.  A 
look,  a  gesture,  an  act,  which  to  everybody  else  is 
insignificant,  tells  you  more  about  that  one  than  words 
can.  If  he  wished  to  conceal  something  from  you,  it 
would  be  apparent.  It  is  as  if  a  bird  told  you.  Your 
friend  designs  that  it  shall  be  a  secret  to  you.  Vain 
wish!  You  will  know  it,  —  and  also  his  design.  He 
says  consciously  nothing  about  it;  yet  as  he  is  neces 
sarily  affected  by  it,  its  effect  is  visible  to  you.  From 
this  effect  you  infer  the  cause.  You  unconsciously 
make  the  right  supposition;  no  other  will  account  for 
precisely  this  behavior.  Your  knowledge  exceeds  the 
woodcraft  of  the  cunningest  hunter.  It  is  as  if  you  had 
a  sort  of  trap,  knowing  the  haunts  of  your  game,  what 
lures  attract  it,  and  its  track.  You  have  foreseen  how 
it  will  behave  when  it  is  caught;  and  now  you  only 
behold  what  you  anticipated. 

Sometimes  from  the  altered  manner  of  our  friend, 
which  no  cloak  can  possibly  conceal,  we  know  that 
something  has  happened,  and  what  it  was  —  all  the 

f  456  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

essential  particulars,  though  it  would  be  a  long  story 
to  tell.  You  are  the  more  sure,  because  in  the  case  of 
Love,  effects  follow  their  causes  more  inevitably,  — 
this  being  a  controlling  power.  A  friend  tells  all  with 
a  look,  a  tone,  a  gesture,  a  presence,  a  friendliness. 
He  is  present  when  absent. 

Subtilty  is  here  more  subtly  expressed  than  in 
the  novel  itself,  because  the  words  of  Thoreau  are 
more  expressive  than  hers,  and  his  imagination 
more  vivid.  In  November,  eight  years  earlier,  he 
had  like  thoughts  (1851):  — 

I  love  my  friends  very  much,  but  I  find  it  is  no  use 
to  go  and  see  them.  I  hate  them  commonly  when  I 
am  near  them.  They  belie  themselves  and  deny  me 
continually,  I  have  certain  friends  whom  I  visit 
occasionally,  but  I  commonly  part  from  them  early, 
with  a  certain  bitter-sweet  sentiment.  That  which  we 
love  is  so  mixed  and  entangled  with  what  we  hate  in 
one  another,  that  we  are  more  grieved  and  disap 
pointed  —  aye,  and  estranged  from  one  another  —  by 
meeting  than  by  absence.  Some  men  may  be  my  ac 
quaintances  merely;  but  one  whom  I  have  been  accus 
tomed  to  regard,  to  idealize,  to  have  dreams  about,  as  a 
friend,  can  never  degenerate  into  an  acquaintance.  I 
must  know  him  on  that  higher  ground,  or  not  know 
him  at  all.  Our  friend  must  be  broad.  His  must  be  an 
atmosphere  coextensive  with  the  universe,  in  which 
we  can  expand  and  breathe.  For  the  most  part  we  are 
smothered  and  stifled  by  one  another.  I  go  to  see  my 

[  457  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

friend  and  try  his  atmosphere.  If  our  atmospheres 
do  not  mingle,  —  if  we  repel  each  other  strongly,  —  it 
is  of  no  use  to  stay. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  passages,  after  all, 
—  certainly  the  most  quoted,  —  are  those  written 
at  some  uncertain  date  before  the  publication  of 
the  "Week"  in  1849;  some  of  which  date  back 
even  before  the  actual  Merrimac  voyage  in  1839. 
Alcott's  diary  shows  that  the  chapter  on  Friend 
ship  in  that  volume  was  completed  in  1847,  and 
in  that  appeared  the  verses :  — 

"  There's  nothing  in  the  world  I  know 
That  can  escape  from  Love; 
For  every  depth  it  goes  below, 
And  every  height  above. 

"  Implacable  is  Love,  — 
Foes  may  be  bought  or  teased 
From  their  hostile  intent; 
But  he  goes  unappeased 
Who  is  on  kindness  bent." 

Village  Culture 

Aug.  29,  1852.  We  boast  that  we  belong  to  the 
Nineteenth  Century,  and  are  making  the  most  rapid 
strides  of  any  nation.  But  consider  how  little  this  vil 
lage  does  for  its  own  culture.  We  have  a  comparatively 
decent  system  of  common  schools,  —  schools  for  in 
fants  only,  as  it  were;  but,  excepting  the  half -starved 

[458] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Lyceum  in  the  winter,  no  schools  for  ourselves.  It  is 
time  that  we  had  uncommon  schools,  —  that  we  did 
not  leave  off  our  education  when  we  begin  to  be  men. 
It  is  time  that  villages  were  universities,  and  their 
elder  inhabitants  the  Fellows,  with  leisure  —  if  they 
are  indeed  so  well  off  —  to  pursue  liberal  studies  as 
long  as  they  live.  Comparatively  few  of  our  townsmen 
evince  any  interest  in  their  own  culture,  however 
much  they  may  boast  of  the  school-tax  they  pay.  In 
this  country,  the  Village  should  take  the  place  of  the 
Noble,  who  has  gone  by  the  board.  It  should  be  the 
patron  of  the  fine  arts.  It  is  rich  enough;  it  only  wants 
the  refinement.  It  can  spend  money  enough  on  such 
things  as  farmers  value;  but  it  is  thought  Utopian  to 
propose  spending  money  for  things  which  more  intelli 
gent  men  know  to  be  of  far  more  worth. 

If  we  live  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  why  should 
we  not  enjoy  the  advantages  which  the  century  has 
to  offer?  Why  should  our  life  be  in  any  respect  pro 
vincial?  As  the  nobleman  of  cultivated  taste  sur 
rounds  himself  with  whatever  conduces  to  his  culture, 
—  books,  paintings,  statuary,  etc., —  so  let  the  village 
do.  This  town  of  Concord,  —  how  much  has  it  ever 
spent  directly  on  its  own  culture?  To  act  collectively 
is  according  to  the  spirit  of  our  institutions;  and  I  am 
confident  that,  as  our  circumstances  are  more  flourish 
ing,  our  means  are  greater.  New  England  can  hire  all 
the  wise  men  in  the  world  to  come  and  teach  her,  and 
board  them  round  the  while,  —  and  not  be  provincial 
at  all.  That  is  the  uncommon  school  we  want.  The 
$125  which  is  subscribed  in  this  town  every  winter 

[  459  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

for  a  Lyceum  is  better  spent  than  any  equal  sum. 
Instead  of  noblemen,  let  us  have  noble  towns  or  vil 
lages  of  men.  This  town  has  just  spent  $16,000  for  a 
Town  House.  Suppose  it  had  been  proposed  to  spend 
an  equal  sum  for  something  which  will  tend  far  more 
to  refine  and  cultivate  its  inhabitants,  —  a  Library, 
for  instance.  We  have  sadly  neglected  our  education. 

It  was  five  years  after  this  that  Concord  found 
public  employment  for  Alcott,  one  of  the  most 
refined  and  original  men,  who,  with  his  daughters, 
has  made  the  name  of  Concord  known  to  more 
millions,  the  world  over,  than  all  other  Concord 
authors.  The  next  year  (August  9,  1853),  after 
selling  his  house  to  Hawthorne,  with  thirty  acres 
of  land,  for  one  thousand  five  hundred  dollars,  in 
1852,  he  called  on  Thoreau,  who  made  this  note 
of  their  conversation :  — 

Alcott  spent  the  day  with  me  yesterday.  He  spent 
the  day  before  with  Emerson.  He  observed  that  he 
there  got  his  wine,  and  now  had  come  after  his  venison. 
Such  was  the  compliment  he  paid  me.  The  question 
of  a  livelihood  is  troubling  him.  He  knew  of  nothing 
he  could  do  for  which  men  would  pay  him.  He  could 
not  compete  with  the  Irish  in  cradling  grain.  His  early 
education  had  not  fitted  him  for  a  clerkship.  He  had 
offered  his  services  to  the  Abolition  Society,  to  go 
about  the  country  as  their  agent  and  speak  for  free 
dom;  but  they  declined  him.  This  is  very  much  to 

[460] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

their  discredit;  they  should  have  been  forward  to  se 
cure  him.  Such  a  connection  with  him  would  confer 
unexpected  dignity  on  their  enterprise.  But  they  can 
not  tolerate  a  man  who  stands  by  a  head  above  them. 
They  require  a  man  who  will  train  well  under  them. 
Consequently  they  have  not  in  their  employ  any  but 
small  men. 


Thoreau  as  a  Workingman 

While  I  lived  in  the  woods  I  did  jobs  about  town,  — 
fence-building,  painting,  gardening,  carpentering,  etc. 
I  built  six  fences,  —  the  common  slat-fence  for  $1.50 
a  rod,  or  else  I  worked  for  $1  a  day.  I  contracted  to 
build  a  wood-shed  of  no  mean  size  for  exactly  six  dol 
lars;  and  I  cleared  about  half  of  that  by  a  close  calcu 
lation  and  swift  working.  The  tenant  wanted  me  to 
throw  in  a  gutter  and  latch;  but  I  carried  off  the  board 
that  was  left  over,  and  gave  him  no  latch  but  a  button. 
It  stands  yet  (1857)  behind  the  Kettle  house.  Going 
home  to  Walden  with  what  nails  were  left  in  a  flour- 
bucket  on  my  arm  in  a  rain,  I  was  about  getting 
into  a  hay-rigging,  when  my  umbrella  frightened  the 
horse,  and  he  kicked  at  me  over  the  fills  [shafts], 
smashed  the  bucket  on  my  arm,  and  stretched  me  on 
my  back.  But  while  I  lay  on  my  back  (his  leg  being 
caught  over  the  shaft),  I  got  up  to  see  him  sprawling 
on  the  other  side.  This  accident  —  the  sudden  bend 
ing  of  my  body  backward  —  sprained  my  stomach  so 
that  I  did  not  get  quite  strong  there  for  several  years; 
but  had  to  give  up  some  fence-building  and  other  work, 
undertaken  from  time  to  time. 

[461  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

One  day  a  man  came  from  the  east  edge  of  the  town 
and  said  that  he  wanted  me  to  brick  up  a  fireplace  for 
him.  I  told  him  I  was  not  a  mason;  but  he  knew  that 
I  had  built  my  own  house  entirely,  and  would  not  take 
no  for  an  answer.  So  I  went.  It  was  three  miles  off, 
and  I  walked  back  and  forth  each  day,  arriving  early 
and  working  as  late  as  if  I  were  living  there.  The  man 
was  gone  away  most  of  the  time;  but  had  left  some 
sand  dug  up  in  his  cowyard  for  me  to  make  mortar 
with.  I  bricked  up  a  fireplace,  papered  a  chamber, 
etc.,  but  my  principal  work  was  whitewashing  ceilings. 
I  took  my  meals  there,  sitting  down  with  my  employer 
(when  he  got  home)  and  his  hired  men.  I  worked  hard 
there  three  days,  charging  only  a  dollar  a  day. 

July,  1852.  There  is  a  coarse,  boisterous,  money- 
making  fellow,  who  is  going  to  build  a  bank- wall  under 
the  hill  along  the  edge  of  his  meadow,  and  he  wishes 
me  to  spend  three  weeks  digging  there  with  him.  Now 
if  I  do  this,  the  community  will  commend  me  as  an 
industrious  and  hard-working  man;  but  as  I  choose  to 
devote  myself  to  labors  that  yield  more  real  profit, 
though  but  little  money,  they  regard  me  as  a  loafer. 
I  prefer  to  finish  my  education  at  a  different  school. 

Sept.  16,  1859.  I  am  invited  to  take  some  party  of 
ladies  or  gentlemen  on  an  excursion,  —  to  walk  or 
sail,  or  the  like;  but  by  all  kinds  of  evasions  I  omit  it, 
—  and  am  thought  to  be  rude  and  unaccommodating 
therefor.  They  do  not  consider  that  the  wood-path 
and  the  boat  are  my  studio,  where  I  maintain  a  sacred 
solitude,  and  do  not  admit  promiscuous  company.  I 
will  see  them  occasionally,  however,  in  an  evening  or 

[  462  ] 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

at  the  table.  They  do  not  think  of  taking  a  child  away 
from  its  school,  to  go  a-huckleberrying  with  them. 
Why  should  not  I,  then,  have  my  school  and  school- 
hours  to  be  respected?  Ask  me  for  a  certain  number  of 
dollars  if  you  will,  but  do  not  ask  me  for  my  after 
noons. 

Thoreau  made  no  objection  to  spending  four 
hours  of  his  morning,  in  the  early  December  fol 
lowing,  in  taking  a  hunted  fugitive  to  a  place  of 
safety.  Here  is  his  note  of  the  drive  with  young 
Meriam,  already  described:  — 

X.  [Meriam]  was  betrayed  by  his  eyes,  which  had  a 
glaring  film  over  them,  and  no  serene  depth  into  which 
you  could  look.  Said,  "I  know  I  am  insane,"  —  and 
I  knew  it  too.  Inquired  particularly  the  way  to  Emer 
son's,  and  the  distance;  and  when  I  told  him,  said  he 
knew  it  as  well  as  if  he  saw  it,  —  wished  to  turn  and 
proceed  to  his  house.  Told  me  one  or  two  things  which 
he  wished  me  not  to  tell  Sanborn.  At  length,  when  I 
made  a  certain  remark,  he  said,  "I  don't  know  but 
you  are  Emerson;  are  you?  You  look  somewhat  like 
him."  He  said  as  much  two  or  three  times,  and  added 
once,  "But  then  Emerson  would  n't  lie."  Finally  he 
put  his  questions  to  me,  of  Fate,  etc.,  as  if  I  were  Emer 
son.  Getting  to  the  woods,  I  remarked  upon  them, 
and  he  mentioned  my  name,  but  never  to  the  end  sus 
pected  who  his  companion  was,  Then  he  "proceeded 
to  business,  since  the  time  was  short,"  —  and  put  to 
me  the  questions  he  was  going  to  put  to  Emerson.  His 

[463  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

insanity  exhibited  itself  chiefly  by  his  incessant,  ex 
cited  talk,  scarcely  allowing  me  to  interrupt  him;  but 
once  or  twice  apologizing  for  his  behavior.  He  also 
called  his  manner  "nervous  excitement."  What  he 
said  was  for  the  most  part  connected  and  sensible 
enough.  He  said,  among  other  things,  that  if  he  did 
not  clean  his  teeth  when  he  got  up,  it  made  him  sick 
all  the  rest  of  the  day;  but  he  had  found  by  late  expe 
rience  that  when  he  had  not  cleaned  his  teeth  for  sev 
eral  days,  they  cleaned  themselves.  I  told  him  that 
such  was  the  general  rule,  —  when  from  any  cause  we 
were  prevented  from  doing  what  we  had  commonly 
thought  indispensable  for  us  to  do,  things  cleaned  or 
took  care  of  themselves. 

Melvin,  a  Foil  to  Meriam 

Three  years  before,  almost  to  a  day,  Thoreau  had 
met  George  Melvin  again,  and  thus  lauds  him:  — 

Saw  little  in  this  walk.  Saw  Melvin's  lank,  bluish- 
white,  black-spotted  hound,  and  Melvin  with  his  gun 
near,  going  home  at  eve.  He  follows  hunting,  —  praise 
be  to  him!  as  regularly  in  our  tame  fields,  as  the 
farmers  follow  farming.  Persistent  Genius!  How  I 
respect  him,  and  thank  him  for  him !  I  trust  the  Lord 
will  provide  us  with  another  Melvin  when  he  is  gone. 
How  good  in  him  to  follow  his  own  bent,  and  not  con 
tinue  at  the  Sunday  School  all  his  days !  What  a  wealth 
he  thus  becomes  in  the  neighborhood!  I  thank  my 
stars  for  Melvin.  I  think  of  him  with  gratitude  when  I 
am  going  to  sleep,  grateful  that  he  exists,  —  that 

[  464  1 


VILLAGE    SKETCHES 

Melvin  who  is  such  a  trial  to  his  mother,  —  he  is  agree 
able  to  me,  as  a  tinge  of  russet  on  the  hillside.  He  is 
my  contemporary  and  neighbor.  He  is  one  tribe,  I  am 
another,  —  and  we  are  not  at  war.  .  .  .  How  I  love  the 
simple,  reserved  countrymen,  my  neighbors,  who  mind 
their  own  business  and  let  me  alone;  who  never  way 
laid  nor  shot  at  me  (to  my  knowledge)  when  I  crossed 
their  fields,  though  each  one  has  a  gun  in  the  house. 
For  nearly  twoscore  years  I  have  known,  at  a  distance, 
these  long-suffering  men,  —  whom  I  never  spoke  to, 
who  never  spoke  to  me,  —  and  now  I  feel  a  certain 
tenderness  for  them,  as  if  this  long  probation  were  but 
the  prelude  to  an  eternal  friendship.  I  am  not  only 
grateful  because  Veias,  and  Homer,  and  Christ,  and 
Shakespeare  have  lived;  but  I  am  grateful  for  Minott 
and  Rice,  and  Melvin  and  Goodwin,  —  and  Puffer 
even.  I  see  Melvin  all  alone,  filling  his  sphere,  in  russet 
suit,  which  no  other  could  fill  or  suggest.  He  takes  up 
as  much  room  in  nature  as  the  most  famous.1 

1  There  was  a  kind  of  humor  in  these  remarks;  but  it  was  a  good 
humor.  He  truly  felt  a  kindly  interest  in  such  neighbors,  and  so 
did  they  in  him.  Few  writers  have  better  portrayed  them.  They 
did  not  misunderstand  him  so  strangely  as  did  Lowell  the  poet,  and 
Snider  the  Hegelian,  and  Bowen  the  college  professor,  and  even 
Whitman  the  Kosmos. 


CHAPTER  XIV 

SLAVERY   AND   JOHN   BROWN 

IT  would  be  hard  to  say  how  early  Henry  Tho- 
reau  became  concerned  on  the  subject  of  slavery 
in  America.  His  friend  John  Brown,  at  the  age 
of  twelve,  when  driving  herds  of  cattle  in  southern 
Ohio  and  western  Virginia,  for  the  food  of  the 
United  States  Army  in  the  War  of  1812  against 
England,  swore  eternal  war  against  slavery;  and 
Thoreau  may  have  hated  it  as  a  boy,  because 
his  family  and  their  visitors  held  it  in  aversion. 
His  Jones  ancestors  in  Weston  had  owned  a 
few  slaves,  but  the  Revolution  had  obliterated 
slaveholding  in  Massachusetts;  the  slave-trade 
was  held  in  abhorrence,  and  was  legally  piracy 
after  1808,  when  John  Thoreau  came  of  age;  and 
in  his  merchandising  he  had  no  temptations  to 
trade  with  slaveholders,  as  the  kinsmen  of  his 
mother's  friend,  Mrs.  Brooks,  the  daughter  of  a 
Concord  Merrick,  were  doing  in  South  Carolina 
when  Henry  was  born.  Soon  after  Garrison  opened 
his  agitation  in  Boston,  and  began  to  edit  the 
"Liberator,"  in  1831,  a  Woman's  Anti-Slavery 
society  was  organized  in  Concord,  of  which  Mrs. 

[  466  ] 


SLAVERY    AND    JOHN    BROWN 

Colonel  Ward,  widow  of  a  Revolutionary  Boston 
officer,  became  an  active  member,  and  also,  after 
1832,  an  intimate  of  both  branches  of  the  Tho- 
reau  family.  Her  daughter,  Miss  Prudence  Ward, 
aunt  of  the  "gentle  boy,"  Ellen  Sewall,  was  also 
a  member,  and  a  zealous  botanist,  artist,  and 
letter- writer,  corresponding  with  the  Thoreau  sis 
ters,  and  instructing  them  in  botany.  When  Mrs. 
Ward  died  in  1844,  one  of  the  aunts  of  Henry 
Thoreau  seems  to  have  written  this  notice  of  her 
philanthropies : — 

Mrs.  Ward  has  for  many  years  been  a  resident  of 
Concord,  and  has  greatly  endeared  herself  to  many 
friends  by  the  urbanity  of  her  manners,  the  kindness 
of  her  heart,  and  that  candor  and  charity  which,  while 
it  passed  over  the  defects  of  her  associates  as  things  not 
to  be  observed,  at  the  same  time  sought  with  eagerness 
the  bright  sides  to  their  characters.  This  made  us 
always  feel  safe  and  happy  in  her  society.1 

1  A  most  amiable  trait,  which  was  not  always  found  among  her 
friends  the  Thoreaus  and  Miss  Mary  Emerson  (then  living  at 
Concord,  and  perhaps  also  a  member  of  this  Anti-Slavery  Society). 
Its  president  was  Mrs.  Brooks,  the  mother  of  George  Brooks  (after 
wards  Congressman  and  judge),  who  had  persuaded  Emerson  to 
write  his  letter  to  President  Van  Buren,  and  to  give  his  First  of 
August  Address  on  West  India  Emancipation,  in  1844.  It  contin 
ued  in  existence  till  Lincoln's  final  Emancipation,  and  at  Mrs. 
Brooks's  table  I  dined  with  Phillips,  Garrison,  and  most  of  the 
distinguished  fugitive  slaves  who  reached  Concord.  The  rescued 
Shadrach,  in  1851,  was  aided  by  her,  and  left  Concord  by  night  for 
Canada,  wearing  one  of  her  husband's  discarded  hats,  and  possibly 

[467] 


HENRY    DAVID    THOREAU 

The  eulogy  of  Mrs.  Ward  went  on:  — 

She  had  a  heart  full  of  compassion  for  the  suffering 
and  the  tried,  which  was  the  cause  of  her  deep  interest 
in  the  deeply  injured,  weary,  heart-broken  slave.  For 
many  years  she  has  been  a  member  of  our  Society, 
always  aiding  us  by  her  purse,  her  sympathies  and  her 
labors.  She  uniformly,  and  consistently  stood  by  the 
principles  of  the  old  pioneer  Society;  and  we  feel  that 
indeed  a  great  void  is  made  in  our  much  thinned 
ranks. 

This  implies  that  the  Concord  society  was 
purely  Garrisonian,  and  had  resisted  the  argu 
ments  of  voting  abolitionists  like  Whittier,  Bir- 
ney,  and  EUzur  Wright.  This  may  have  been 
one  reason  why  Thoreau,  as  he  came  to  the  voting 
age,  in  1838,  abstained  from  voting;  but  it  was 
more  likely ,/to  have  been  the  result  of  his  own 
strict  logicy  So  long  as  Massachusetts,  even  pas 
sively,  strained  negro  slavery,  ThoreaiT  would 
neither  vote  nor  pay  taxes.  He  had  in  col 
lege  probably  been  an  anti-Jackson  Whig,  like 
John  Quincy  Adams,  Daniel  Webster,  and  Caleb 
Gushing,  who  all  opposed  slavery  in  Congress, 
—  as,  indeed,  the  whole  party  in  State  Conven 
tion  did  in  1837.  He  early  explained  his  own 
ground  of  opposition  to  the  pro-slavery  govern- 
on  overcoat  (for  it  was  winter),  and  was  driven  in  a  carriage  by  her 
neighbor,  Bigeiow,  the  blacksmith. 

[  468  ] 


SLAVERY    AND    JOHN    BROWN 

merit  in  his  "Civil  Disobedience"  of  1847,  which 
Miss  Peabody  first  printed  in  her  "^Esthetic 
Papers,"  along  with  papers  by  Emerson,  Haw 
thorne,  and  S.  G.  Ward,  in  1848.  Thoreau  is 
said  to  have  rung  the  bell  for  Emerson's  Eman 
cipation  Address  of  1844;  and  he  was  active  in 
making  arrangements  for  the  memorial  service  for 
John  Brown,  on  the  afternoon  of  his  execution, 
December  2, 1859.  It  was  soon  after  this  that  he 
aided  the  escape  of  Meriam  to  Canada,  as  he  had 
that  of  several  fugitive  slaves  in  former  years. 

In  his  place  as  Curator  of  the  Concord  Lyceum 
in  1842  and  later,  he  promoted  free  discussion 
of  the  slave  question  in  public,  and  helped  organ 
ize  the  band  of  young  members  of  the  Lyceum 
that  voted  down  the  conservative  seniors  of  the 
village  who  strove  to  keep  Wendell  Phillips  from 
addressing  the  fortnightly  Lyceum  on  Slavery. 
The  story  is  an  interesting  one,  and  is  not  too  well 
known.  It  exists  in  letters  chiefly  of  the  Thoreau 
families,  and  two  or  three  of  these  are  by  Helen 
and  Maria  Thoreau,  and  Miss  Prudence  Ward. 

The  Thoreau  Family  and  the  Concord  Lyceum 

Soon  after  his  return  from  the  voyage  on  the 
Merrimac  in  1839,  Henry  was  chosen  Secretary 
of  the  Village  Lyceum,  and  held  that  or  a  similar 

[  469  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

place  for  five  or  six  years,  lecturing  himself  every 
year.  When  in  1842  it  was  announced  at  the  de 
bating  session,  in  alternate  weeks,  that  Wen 
dell  Phillips  would  lecture  the  next  week,  an 
elderly"  member,  John  Keyes,  moved  as  a  resolve, 
"That  as  this  Lyceum  is  established  for  social 
and  mutual  improvement,  the  introduction  of 
the  vexed  and  disorganizing  question  of  Aboli 
tionism  or  Slavery  should  be  kept  out  of  it."  The 
motion  failed,  and  Phillips  lectured  as  announced. 
The  same  winter  Mr.  Alcott  returned  from 
England  with  his  English  friends  Charles  Lane 
and  Henry  Wright,  who  spent  the  winter  and 
spring  with  the  Alcotts,  in  the  Hosmer  cottage, 
before  going  in  May  to  open  their  rural  Elysium 
at  Harvard.  Writing  to  her  brother,  George 
Ward,  in  New  York  (December  8,  1842),  Miss 
Ward  said:  — 

We  find  the  Englishmen  very  agreeable.  We  took 
tea  with  them  at  Mrs.  Brooks's,  and  they  have  passed 
one  evening  here  at  Mrs.  Thoreau's  (in  the  Parkman 
house).  They  and  Mr.  Alcott  held  a  talk  at  the  Marl 
boro  Chapel  in  Boston,  Sunday  evening.  Doubtless 
you,  George,  would  consider  them  "clean  daft";  for 
they  are  as  like  Mr.  Alcott  in  their  views  as  strangers 
from  a  foreign  land  well  can  be.  I  should  like  to  have 
them  in  this  vicinity.  It  makes  a  pleasant  variety  (to 
say  no  more)  to  have  these  different  thinkers  near  us; 

f  470  1 


SLAVERY    AND    JOHN    BROWN 

and  Mr.  Lane,  we  are  all  agreed  in  liking  to  hear  talk. 
Our  Lyceum  has  opened,  and  last  evening  we  had 
"The  Philosophy  of  Slavery." 

This  may  have  been  the  title  of  Phillips's  lec 
ture.  At  any  rate,  he  spoke  that  winter,  in  his 
usual  quiet  manner,  but  uttering  extreme  opin 
ions;  favoring  disunion  as  the  best  antidote 
for  slavery,  and  denouncing  the  Constitution  of 
1787  as  the  protector  of  that  national  curse.  Be 
ing  invited  to  lecture  the  next  winter  (January, 
17,  1844),  the  same  old  citizen,  Squire  Keyes, 
moved  that  he  be  asked  to  choose  some  other 
topic  than  Slavery;  alleging  that  his  sentiments 
of  last  winter  had  been  "vile,  pernicious,  and 
abominable."  The  Lyceum,  well  filled  with  young 
people,  voted  to  hear  him  on  his  own  subject. 
He  came,  and  spoke  for  an  hour  and  a  half,  "a 
magnificent  burst  of  eloquence  from  beginning 
to  end,"  as  one  of  his  hearers  (possibly  Miss 
Helen  Thoreau)  wrote  in  the  "Liberator."  H. 
M.  went  on:  — 

He  charged  the  sin  of  slavery  upon  the  religion  of 
the  country,  with  its  20,000  pulpits.  The  Church  had 
charged  Mr.  Garrison  with  being  an  infidel  to  its 
teachings,  —  and  there  was  some  truth  in  it.  "I  love 
my  Master  too  well  to  be  anything  but  infidel  to  the 
religion  of  my  country."  Of  the  State  he  said,  "The 

[471  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

curse  of  every  honest  man  should  be  upon  its  Consti 
tution.  Could  I  say  to  Jefferson,  Hancock,  and  Adams, 
after  the  experience  of  the  past  fifty  years,  'Look  at 
the  fruits  of  your  work'  —  they  would  bid  me  crush 
the  parchment  under  my  feet." 

This  was  too  much  for  the  civil-suited  conserv 
atism  of  Concord,  and  an  evening  was  appointed 
to  discuss  and  censure  the  orator. 

The  mover  of  the  vote  of  censure  [the  same  John 
Keyes,  says  H.  M.]  talked  an  hour  quoting  St.  Paul 
about  "leading  captive  silly  women,  etc." 

Another  senior,  Samuel  Hoar  (father  of  the  late 
Senator),  occupied  an  hour  more  with  like  sever 
ity,  saying,  "It  requires  not  a  little  arrogance  in 
a  stripling  to  assert  such  monstrous  doctrines." 
He  complimented  Phillips  on  his  oratory,  but  sol 
emnly  warned  the  young  persons  present  against 
such  exciting  utterances.  As  he  went  on,  he  kept 
asking,  "What  would  our  young  Cicero  say  to 
this?  How  would  he  explain  this?"  etc. 

Phillips,  who  had  been  warned  by  the  Thoreaus, 
Colonel  Whiting,  or  some  other  abolitionist,  of  the 
attack  to  be  made  on  him,  was  quietly  present  in 
the  back  part  of  the  old  vestry  of  the  First  Parish 
Meeting-House  of  Whiting,  Emerson,  and  Dr. 
Ripley,  and  now  stepped  forward.  "Would  the 
gentleman  like  an  answer  here?  and  now?"  That 

f  472  1 


I  f 
SLAVERY   AND    JOHN    BROWN 

was  not  the  gentleman's  wish  at  all,  —  but  there 
was  no  help  against  it.    Phillips  said:  — 

I  agree  with  the  last  speaker  that  this  is  a  seri 
ous  subject;  otherwise  I  should  not  have  devoted  my 
whole  life  to  it.  Stripling  as  I  am,  I  but  echo  the 
voice  of  the  ages,  —  of  our  venerable  fathers,  —  of 
statesmen,  poets,  philosophers.  .  .  .  The  gentleman 
has  painted  the  dangers  to  life,  liberty,  and  happiness 
that  might  be  the  consequence  of  doing  right;  the 
dangers  he  dreads  are  now  legalized  at  the  South.  I 
would  not  so  blaspheme ,God  as  to  doubt  that  I  shall 
be  safe  in  obeying  Him/.  Treading  the  dust  of  statute 
law  beneath  my  feet,  I  enter  the  Holy  of  Holies,  arid 
there  I  find  written,  "Thou  shalt  not  deliver  unto  his 
master  the  servant  which  is  escaped  from  hisjnaster 
unto  thee;  he  shall  dwell  with  you,  even  among  you." 
I  throw  myself  on  the  bosom  of  Infinite  Wisdom. 

Our  pulpits  are  silent.  Who  ever  heard  our  subject 
presented,  before  this  movement  began,  of  the  silly 
women  and  the  striplings?  The  first  speaker  [Keyes] 
accused  me  of  ambitious  motives.  Had  I  been  ambi 
tious,  I  should  have  chosen  an  easier  path  to  fame.  Yet 
I  would  say  to  you,  my  young  friends,  who  have  just 
been  cautioned  against  excitement,  and  advised  to  fold 
your  hands  in  selfish  ease,  —  "Throw  yourself  upon 
the  altar  of  some  noble  cause!  enthusiasm  is  the'life  oi 
the  soutr**  To  rise  in  the morning IraTy tjojLat&nd  drink 
anoTgather  gold,  is  a  life  not  worth  living. 

This  expressed  the  aspirations  of  Henry  Tho- 
reau,  his  sisters,  and  his  younger  friends.  They 

[473] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

applauded  the  orator  and  voted  to  hear  him 
again  on  the  same  theme.  He  came  in  March, 
1845,  a  dozen  years  before  John  Brown  was  first 
seen  and  heard  in  Concord,  and  Thoreau  re 
ported  both  for  the  public  press.  But  Miss  Ward, 
who  had  gone  to  visit  a  nephew  at  Spencer  in 
1845,  must  be  informed  of  the  great  event;  and 
so  Helen  Thoreau  wrote  to  tell  her  i1 

I  wish  to  remind  you  of  the  Anti-Slavery  Society  at 
the  Tabernacle  in  New  York,  on  the  6th  of  May.  You 
must  not  fail  to  attend;  and  I  hope  to  meet  you  at  the 
New  England  Convention.  Can  you  not  visit  here 
about  that  time? 

Aunt  Maria  has  kept  you  informed  of  our  contro 
versy  with  the  Lyceum.  A  hard  battle,  —  but  victory 
at  last;  next  winter  we  shall  have  undoubtedly  a  free 
Lyceum.  Mr.  Emerson  says  that  words  cannot  ex 
press  his  admiration  for  the  lecture  of  Mr.  Phillips. 
Did  you  receive  the  paper  ("Liberator")  containing 
Henry's  article  about  it? 

I  am  glad  that  you  liked  the  Hutchinsons.  One  of 
our  evening  meetings  last  May  was  closed  with  their 
Emancipation  Song,  —  the  whole  audience  rising  and 
joining  in  the  last  stanza.  Ten  of  the  Hutchinson 
family  sung.  George  Thatcher  happened  to  be  present, 
and  was  highly  delighted.  We  are  making  great  efforts 
to  get  them  here  in  Concord.  I  long  to  see  you  in  Con- 

1  This  is  one  of  the  few  letters  of  Helen  Thoreau's  that  have  been 
preserved.  She  died  in  June,  1849,  not  quite  thirty-seven  years 
old.  More  of  Sophia's  exist. 

[  474  ] 


MARIA    THOREAU 


SLAVERY   AND    JOHN    BROWN 

cord  again.   We  always  have  something  stirring  here. 
Aunt  Maria  will  of  course  tell  you  all  the  news. 

Maria  Thoreau,  the  last  survivor  of  the  Ameri 
can  branch  of  the  family  that  retained  the  name, 
died  at  the  house  of  her  kinsman  George  Thatch 
er,  just  mentioned,  in  1881.  She  and  her  two  chief 
correspondents,  Miss  Ward  and  Miss  Laura  Har 
ris,  kept  up  a  lively  interchange  of  letters  for 
some  forty  years,  in  which  Henry  Thoreau  was 
often  mentioned.  He  shared  some  of  their  opin 
ions,  but  not  all;  and  this  mention  of  the  Ward 
family,  with  branches  in  New  York  and  in  Spen 
cer,  near  Worcester,  will  explain  allusions  to  them 
in  Thoreau's  letters. 

At  this  date  (1845-46)  the  early  Journals  had 
mostly  been  destroyed,  and  the  Fugitive-Slave 
Act  of  1850  had  not  been  passed,  nor  had  Daniel 
Webster  given  his  unlucky  March  speech  in  that 
year,  which  so  injured  his  reputation  as  a  far- 
seeing  statesman.  Three  weeks  before  he  made 
that  speech  (February  15,  1850)  he  had  written 
to  Dr.  Furness  at  Philadelphia:  — 

From  my  earliest  youth  I  have  regarded  slavery  as  a 
great  moral  and  political  evil.  I  think  it  unjust, 
founded  only  in  superior  power,  a  standing  and  per 
manent  conquest  of  the  stronger  over  the  weaker.  All 
pretences  of  defending  it  on  the  ground  of  difference 

[475  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

of  races  I  have  ever  condemned.  If  the  black  race  is 
weaker,  that  is  a  reason  against,  not  for,  its  subjection 
and  oppression.  Slavery  is  a  continual  and  permanent 
violation  of  human  rights. 

The  opinions,  and  even  the  expression  of  them 
by  John  Brown  and  by  Thoreau  did  not  much 
differ  from  these  of  Webster.  But  he  went  on  to 
say: — 

In  my  judgment,  confusion,  conflict,  embittered 
controversy,  violence,  bloodshed,  and  civil  war  would 
only  rivet  the  chains  of  slavery  the  more  strongly. 

This  was  a  short-sighted  view;  it  was  not  that 
of  John  Quincy  Adams,  nor  was  it  that  of  Tho 
reau  or  of  John  Brown;  or  of  those  few  men 
who  secretly  supported  Brown  and  gave  him 
the  money  and  the  arms  to  make  his  attack  on 
this  "permanent  violation  of  human  rights,"  this 
"subjection  and  oppression  of  a  weaker  race  by 
a  stronger,"  which  Webster  abhorred. 

Webster's  policy  was  one  of  despair  and  com 
promise;  that  of  Thoreau,  of  Brown,  and  his 
friends,  was  a  policy  of  hope  and  faith;  and  they 
understood,  as  few  Americans  seemed  then  to 
understand,  the  force  of  a  noble  example,  which, 
in  Brown's  case,  converted  more  men  and  women 
to  his  view  of  slavery  than  all  the  orators  and 
moralists  and  novelists  had  been  able  to  convert 

[476] 


SLAVERY   AND    JOHN    BROWN 

in  the  thirty  years  since  Andrew  Jackson  came 
to  the  Presidency.  That  miracle  happened  which 
Emerson   had   chronicled,   in   the   liberation   of 
Europe  from  the  fetters  of  the  Holy  Alliance,  — 
"  The  astonished  Muse  finds  thousands  at  her  side." 

And  the  "Touchstone"  of  Allingham,  first  made 
famous  by  Emerson  in  one  of  his  eulogies  on 
Brown,  pointed  symbolically  to  the  same  truth 
of  human  nature  more  sharply:  — 

"A  man  there  came,  —  whence  none  could  tell,  — 
Bearing  a  Touchstone  in  his  hand: 
He  tested  all  things  in  the  land 

By  its  unerring  spell. 

A  thousand  transformations  rose 

From  fair  to  foul,  from  foul  to  fair: 
The  royal  crown  he  did  not  spare, 

Nor  scorn  the  beggar's  clothes. 

"  Of  heirloom  jewels,  prized  so  much, 

Were  many  changed  to  chips  and  clods; 
Nay  —  even  statues  of  the  gods 
Crumbled  beneath  its  touch. 
Then  angrily  the  people  cried, 

*  The  loss  outweighs  the  profit  far,  — 
Our  goods  suffice  us  as  they  are; 
We  will  not  have  them  tried.' 

"But  though  they  slew  him  with  the  sword, 
And  in  the  fire  the  touchstone  burned, 
Its  doing  could  not  be  o'erturned, 
Its  undoings  restored. 

[477] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

And  when,  to  stop  all  future  harm, 

They  strewed  its  ashes  on  the  breeze, 
They  little  guessed  each  grain  of  these 

Conveyed  the  perfect  charm." 

In  his  essay  on  " Civil  Disobedience"  (1846), 
Thoreau  had  said,  philosophically  foreshadow 
ing  Brown,  and  setting  Webster  aside  by  his  own 
principles:  — 

Statesmen  are  apt  to  forget  that  the  world  is  not 
governed  by  policy  and  expediency.  They  speak  of 
moving  society,  —  but  have  no  resting-place  without 
it.  Webster  never  goes  behind  government,  and  so 
cannot  speak  with  authority  about  it.  Truth  is  always 
in  harmony  with  herself;  and  is  not  concerned  chiefly 
to  reveal  the  justice  that  may  consist  with  wrong 
doing.  For  eighteen  hundred  years  the  New  Testament 
has  been  written:  yet  where  is  the  legislator  who  has 
wisdom  and  practical  talent  enough  to  avail  himself 
of  the  light  it  sheds  on  the  science  of  legislation? 

Such  a  legislator,  proclaiming  his  law  from  the 
dungeon  and  the  scaffold,  Thoreau  at  last  saw 
appear  in  Brown,  who  said  to  the  court  which 
sentenced  him:  — 

I  see  a  book  kissed  here  which  I  suppose  to  be  the 
Bible,  or  at  least  the  New  Testament.  That  teaches 
me  that  "whatsoever  I  would  that  men  should  do  unto 
me,  I  should  do  even  so  unto  them."  It  teaches  me 
further  to  "remember  them  in  bonds,  as  bound  with 

[  478  ] 


SLAVERY   AND    JOHN   BROWN 

them."  I  endeavored  to  act  up  to  that  instruction. 
I  say  that  I  am  yet  too  young  to  understand  that  God 
is  any  respecter  of  persons.  I  believe  that  to  have  in 
terfered,  as  I  have  done,  in  behalf  of  His  despised  poor, 
was  not  wrong,  but  right. 

To  his  questioners,  the  rulers  of  the  slave- 
cursed  State  of  Virginia,  he  had,  weeks  before, 
repeated  the  warning  which  Jefferson  had  given 
them  from  Paris,  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
century;  that  they  must  emancipate  their  slaves, 
and  not  wait  for  Abraham  Lincoln  to  do  it  for 
them,  by  force :  — 

You  had  better  —  all  you  people  at  the  South  — 
prepare  yourselves  for  a  settlement  of  this  negro  ques 
tion,  —  that  must  come  up  for  settlement  sooner  than 
you  are  prepared  for  it.  The  sooner  you  are  prepared 
for  it  the  better.  You  may  dispose  of  me  very  easily; 
I  am  nearly  disposed  of  now.  But  this  question  is  still 
to  be  settled;  the  end  of  that  is  not  yet. 

It  came  even  quicker  than  Brown  himself,  or 
Lincoln,  or  Thoreau,  had  imagined;  though  Tho- 
reau  did  not  live  to  see  it.  In  less  than  four  years 
after  Brown's  death,  emancipation  was  decreed 
by  the  head  of  the  nation,  and  in  less  than  ten 
years  the  Union,  for  which  Brown  fought,  was 
reconstituted  on  the  basis  of  emancipation,  as 
Adams  had  foretold. 

[  479  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Although  Thoreau  had  rendered  many  services 
to  the  cause  of  human  freedom  for  many  years, 
and  had  looked  after  more  than  one  fugitive  slave 
who  made  his  way  to  Concord,  either  for  escape 
to  Canada,  or  for  enlightening  his  countrymen, 
of  both  races,  on  the  actual  character  of  Ameri 
can  slavery,  yet  his  chief  service  was  in  the  in 
stant  and  effective  championship  given  to  the 
slandered  character  of  Brown,  when  his  foray 
in  Virginia  met  with  the  immediate  and  inevi 
table  defeat  which  Brown's  own  providential 
mismanagement  occasioned.  Along  with  Emer 
son  and  Phillips,  Thoreau  saw  at  once  what 
this  startling  demonstration  signified.  They  had 
known  nothing  of  Brown's  secret  and  long-cher 
ished  plans  for  making  slave  property  unsafe; 
but  they  knew  what  he  had  done  in  Kansas  and 
Missouri,  and  what  the  capacity  and  mood  of  the 
man  were;  and  they  felt  sure,  as  I  did,  that  the 
nation  would  respond,  in  no  short  time,  to  such 
heroic  and  unselfish  mood.  It  did  so  respond  be 
fore  his  death,  and  still  more  signally  during  the 
early  Civil  War.  The  John  Brown  Song,  a  gen 
uine  creation  of  the  camp  in  Boston  Harbor,  was 
sung  in  Boston,  where  I  heard  it,  in  the  late  sum 
mer  of  1861,  and  by  the  marching  soldiers  of  a 
regiment  commanded  by  the  son  of  Daniel  Web- 

[  480  ] 


SLAVERY   AND    JOHN    BROWN 

ster;  and  before  Brown  had  been  two  years  in 
his  grave  among  the  mountains,  Mrs.  Howe's 
"Battle  Hymn  of  the  Republic"  had  translated 
his  meaning  into  those  memorable  verses  that 
have  gone  in  music  round  the  world.  Thoreau 
had  said  at  Framingham  in  1854:  — 

The  law  will  never  make  men  free;  it  is  men  who 
have  got  to  make  the  law  free.  They  are  the  lovers 
of  law  and  order  who  observe  the  law  when  the  gov 
ernment  breaks  it. 

Five  years  later,  having  come  to  the  acquaint 
ance  of  John  Brown,  Henry  said  to  a  far  wider 
audience  than  he  had  ever  addressed  before:  — 

No  man  has  appeared  in  America  as  yet  who  loved 
his  fellow-man  so  well  and  treated  him  so  tenderly. 
He  lived  for  him.  He  took  up  his  life  and  laid  it  down 
for  him.  He  has  liberated  many  thousands  of  slaves, 
North  and  South. 

Of  the  execution  he  added:  — 

I  foresee  the  time  when  the  painter  will  paint  that 
scene,  no  longer  going  to  Rome  for  a  subject;  the  poet 
will  sing  it;  the  historian  record  it;  and,  with  the  Land 
ing  of  the  Pilgrims  and  the  Declaration  of  Independ 
ence,  it  will  be  the  ornament  of  some  future  National 
Gallery,  when  at  least  the  present  form  of  slavery  shall 
be  no  more  here.  We  shall  then  be  at  liberty  to  weep 
for  Captain  Brown.  Then,  and  not  till  then,  we  will 
take  our  revenge. 

[481  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

How  tenderly  Thoreau  himself  could  treat  his 
unhappy  fellow  men  was  seen  by  Moncure  Con- 
way  (that  generous  Virginian  who  emancipated 
his  own  slaves)  in  the  second  interview  he  ever 
had  with  the  Concord  hermit.  It  was  in  1853, 
when  Conway  was  opening  his  acquaintance  with 
Concord  and  its  men  of  genius.  He  had  made  an 
appointment  to  walk  in  the  woods  with  Thoreau, 
but  something  had  happened  in  the  interval:  — 

I  found  the  Thoreaus  [at  their  new  house  near  the 
railroad  station]  agitated  by  the  arrival  of  a  fugitive 
from  Virginia,  who  had  come  to  their  door  at  day 
break.  Thoreau  took  me  to  a  room  where  his  excellent 
sister,  Sophia,  was  ministering  to  the  fugitive,  who 
recognized  me  as  one  he  had  seen  in  Virginia.  He  was 
alarmed,  but  his  fears  passed  into  delight  when,  after 
talking  with  him  about  our  County,  I  certified  his 
genuineness.  I  observed  the  tender  and  lowly  devo 
tion  of  Thoreau  to  the  African.  He  now  and  then  drew 
near  to  the  trembling  man,  and  with  a  cheerful  voice 
bade  him  feel  at  home,  and  have  no  fear  that  any 
power  should  again  wrong  him.  That  whole  day  he 
mounted  guard  over  the  fugitive,  for  it  was  a  slave- 
hunting  time.  The  next  day  the  fugitive  was  got  off 
to  Canada,  and  I  enjoyed  my  first  walk  with  Thoreau. 

When  Conway  visited  Concord  in  late  July 
immediately  after  the  Union  reverse  at  Bull 
Run,  the  town  was  sad  over  the  defeat  of  its  first 

[  482  ] 


SLAVERY   AND    JOHN    BROWN 

volunteers,  and,  as  he  said,  "optimism  had  fled 
even  from  the  home  of  Emerson.  Thoreau,  sadly 
out  of  health,  was  the  only  cheerful  man  in  Con- 
cordia;  he  was  in  a  state  of  exaltation  about  the 
moral  regeneration  of  the  nation." 

Thoreau  had  lately  returned  from  the  Minne 
sota  journey,  a  little  better  in  health;  and  three 
weeks  later  (August  19)  he  visited  the  Ricket- 
sons  at  New  Bedford,  driving  and  walking  about 
the  old  haunts  there  for  five  days.  Then  Mr. 
Ricketson  returned  his  visit,  for  three  days,  walk 
ing  with  Thoreau  to  the  Battle-Ground  and  to 
Walden,  and  bathing  with  him  in  those  hallowed 
waters.  Thoreau  soon  grew  weaker,  and  Walden 
was  too  far  for  a  walk;  but  he  drove  there  with 
Sophia  on  a  fine  September  day  in  the  first  year 
of  the  war,  of  which  she  wrote,  "While  I  sat 
sketching,  Henry  gathered  grapes  from  a  vine 
dropping  its  fruit  into  the  green  waters  which 
gently  laved  its  roots." 

Gradually  he  bade  farewell  to  all  his  outdoor 
activities  as  the  stern  winter  came  on,  without 
attracting  him  to  a  milder  climate;  and  he  gave 
up  even  his  active  interest  in  the  freedom  of  the 
slave,  —  feeling  confident,  apparently,  that  since 
the  demonstration  of  John  Brown,  the  cause  of 
the  oppressed  was  in  sure  hands,  as  most  of  those 

[483] 


HENRY    DAVID  THOREAU 

who  had  aided  that  martyr  came  early  to  believe. 
Of  this,  Channing  says:  — 

For  Captain  John  Brown,  from  the  first,  he  had  un 
divided  respect  and  esteem;  nor  had  that  devoted  man 
at  his  death  a  sincerer  mourner.  We  took  our  usual 
walk  after  his  affecting  funeral  ceremony  in  Concord, 
and  the  cool  twilight  cast  its  reproach  over  that  trag 
edy,  as  there  fell  on  the  events  that  followed  a  twi 
light  of  terror,  succeeded  by  a  resurrection  of  peaceful 
and  serene  freedom.  Thoreau  had  never  faltered,  but 
lived  and  worked  a  faithful  friend  to  the  American 
slave. 


CHAPTER   XV 

DEATH   AND    LITERARY   REBIRTH   OF    THOREAU 

To  those  who  really  knew  Thoreau,  his  last 
illness  and  death  revealed  the  profound  strength 
and  sweet  earnestness  of  his  character.  Well  as 
we  had  observed  the  foundation  of  moral  great 
ness  on  which  it  was  built,  it  required  the  crisis 
in  Virginia  which  preceded  and  brought  on  the 
Civil  War  to  show  all  its  virtue,  which  a  certain 
drapery  of  paradox  and  levity  had  veiled  with 
provoking  contradictions.  With  the  eye  of  a  seer 
and  the  voice  of  a  prophet,  he  placed  himself  at 
the  bar  beside  his  heroic  friend,  and  told  the 
startled  world  the  truth  of  the  situation,  and 
the  doom  of  a  national  and  commercial  crime, 
which  at  last  had  come  up  for  sentence  and  exe 
cution.  He  stood  also  beside  Abraham  Lincoln 
in  those  revelations  of  divine  justice  which  con 
trast  so  forcibly  with  the  political  sagacity  and 
expedients  in  which  that  statesman's  genius  was 
so  fertile,  and  which  he  was  so  ready  to  abandon 
in  moments  of  divine  illumination.  Said  Lincoln  to 
Moncure  Conway  in  January,  1862,  when  he  was 
urged  to  proclaim  emancipation,  as  Fremont  had: 

f  485  1 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

The  position  in  which  I  am  placed  brings  me  into 
some  knowledge  of  opinions  in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
and  of  many  different  kinds  of  people;  and  it  appears 
to  me  that  the  great  masses  of  this  country  care  little 
about  the  negro,  and  are  anxious  only  for  victory. 

Adding,  however:  — 

We  shall  need  all  the  anti-slavery  feeling  in  the 
country,  and  more;  you  can  go  home  and  try  to  bring 
the  people  to  your  views;  and  you  may  say  anything 
you  like  about  me,  if  that  will  help.  Don't  spare  me! 

With  a  smile.  Then  he  added,  very  gravely:  — 

When  the  hour  comes  for  dealing  with  slavery,  I 
trust  I  will  be  willing  to  do  my  duty  though  it  cost 
my  life.  And,  gentlemen,  lives  will  be  lost. 

This  remark  prefigured  that  stern  passage  in 
one  of  his  last  public  addresses,  when  he  said:  — 

If  God  wills  that  this  mighty  scourge  of  war  con 
tinue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the  bondman's  two 
hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil  shall  be 
sunk;  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with  the 
lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword, 
—  as  was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it 
must  be  said,  "The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true 
and  righteous  altogether." 

Nothing  said  or  written  by  Thoreau  or  John 
Brown  is  more  tragic  or  portentous  than  this. 

[486] 


DEATH   AND    REBIRTH 

Yet  each  of  the  three,  on  the  background  of  such 
gloomy  imaginations,  traced  the  most  tender 
sentiments  and  the  most  humorous  pictures  of 
ordinary  life.  They  are  three  striking  and  search 
ing  examples  of  moral  genius,  perhaps  the  most 
profound  that  ever  appeared  on  our  American 
stage;  yet  each  of  them  was  looked  upon,  by  un 
observant  or  indiscriminate  contemporaries,  as 
trifling,  or  merely  eccentric,  persons. 

Toward  the  close  of  his  remarkable  funeral 
oration  on  Thoreau,  Emerson,  who  insisted  that 
the  ceremony  should  take  place  in  the  village 
church, — as  Hawthorne's  had,  and  as  his  own  and 
Channing's  afterward  did, — said  with  great  truth: 
"The  country  knows  not  yet,  or  in  the  least 
part,  how  great  a  son  it  has  lost."  Time  has 
supplied  that  knowledge;  and  the  singular  dis 
paragement  of  Thoreau's  genius  which  began  with 
the  educated  seniors  of  his  own  village,  and  was 
spread  and  exaggerated  by  the  alumni  of  his  own 
college, — Holmes,  Lowell,  J.  F.  Clarke,  Alger,  and 
others,  — had  begun  to  cease  before  his  lamented 
death.  The  editor  of  the  "Atlantic  Monthly," 
Mr.  Fields,  who  had  succeeded  to  the  able  but 
rather  indolent  editorship  of  J.  R.  Lowell,  had  a 
publisher's  instinct  for  what  his  readers  would 
like;  and  persuaded  Thoreau,  in  his  long  illness,  to 

[487] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

promise  him  those  later  essays  which  began  to 
come  out  in  the  year  of  his  death.  They  had  been 
written  earlier,  but  were  buried  in  the  rich  luxuri 
ance  of  his  thirty  volumes  of  the  Journals.  He 
now  took  them  up  anew,  and  with  patient  indus 
try  prepared  them  to  refute,  after  his  decease, 
the  ungenerous  and  undiscriminating  verdicts 
that  had  been  registered  against  him,  and  con 
tinued  for  some  years  longer.  This  accounts 
for  the  uncalled-for  sharpness  of  Ellery  Chan- 
ning's  note  to  me,  in  the  year  following  our  friend's 
death  (November,  1863),  in  which  he  said:  — 

My  plan  is  to  prepare  a  sketch  of  Mr.  Thoreau's 
life,  —  perhaps  to  make  a  book  of  300  pages.  I  sup 
pose  I  could  complete  it,  so  that  it  might  be  printed 
in  1864.  .  .  .  That  justice  can  be  done  to  our  deceased 
brother  by  me  is  something  I  do  not  think  of.  But  to 
you  and  me  is  entrusted  the  care  of  his  immediate  fame. 
I  feel  that  my  part  is  not  yet  done.  My  sketch  must 
only  serve  as  a  note  and  advertisement  that  such  a 
man  lived,  —  that  he  did  brave  work,  which  must  yet 
be  given  to  the  world.  In  the  midst  of  all  the  cold 
and  selfish  men  who  knew  this  brave  and  devoted 
scholar  and  genius,  why  should  you  not  be  called  on 
to  make  some  sacrifice,  —  even  if  it  be  to  publish  my 
sketch?  There  might  be  persons  who,  if  they  were 
to  surmise  that  we  two  had  this  object  in  view,  would 
hire  some  literary  jackal  to  dig  up  and  befoul  our 
brother's  corpse.  With  this,  then,  let  us  conclude: 

[488] 


DEATH    AND    REBIRTH 

About  January  1st,  expect  my  "copy,"  -with  no 
shadow  of  patronage  or  request  in  it,  but  your  own 
and  mine. 

Although  I  saw  no  occasion  for  so  much  as 
perity,  and  my  turn  was  to  avoid  controversies, 
yet,  as  I  had  a  new  weekly  then  at  my  disposal 
(the  "Boston  Commonwealth")  with  room  for 
literary  matter  of  some  extent,  I  assented  to  this 
proposal,  and  began  to  print  the  manuscript  of 
my  friend,  in  whose  house  I  had  lived  for  three 
years,  and  who  afterwards  lived  ten  years  in 
mine,  with  much  amity  and  confidence. 

This  went  on  for  several  weeks,  and  the  early 
chapters  began  to  attract  some  attention.  I  re 
member,  in  particular  that  Charles  Sumner,  then 
in  the  midst  of  his  great  career  in  the  Senate,  at 
the  head  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Affairs, 
and  in  the  crisis  of  the  Civil  War,  expressed  a  real 
interest  in  the  biography.  But  in  some  pique  or 
caprice,  characteristic  of  his  literary  work,  Chan- 
ning  soon  withdrew  the  manuscript,  and  its  print 
ing  was  not  renewed  for  several  years.  Then  it  was 
taken  up  by  Miss  Alcott's  publisher,  Thomas  Niles, 
of  Roberts  Brothers,  and  completed  in  a  volume 
which  was  thought  by  the  publisher  not  to  be  so 
thick  as  the  custom  of  booksellers  required;  and 
he  requested  the  author,  through  me,  to  give  him 

[  489  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

two  or  three  more  chapters.  To  do  this,  Chan- 
ning  resorted  to  an  odd  expedient.  He  had  ar 
ranged  with  his  friends  Emerson  and  Thoreau, 
twenty  years  earlier  (in  1852),  to  prepare  a  manu 
script  made  up  from  the  conversations  and  Jour 
nals  of  the  three  friends,  which  should  present  the 
table-talk  of  the  few  past  years,  and  might  be 
printed  if,  when  completed,  it  seemed  best  to 
make  it  public.  This  was  Channing's  request, 
and  at  his  instance  Emerson  gave  him  a  copy  of 
portions  of  his  Journals  previous  to  1852,  and 
Thoreau  allowed  him  to  copy  passages  from  such 
of  the  Thoreau  Journals  as  were  then  in  exist 
ence.1  From  this  manuscript,  never  completed, 
and  to  the  publication  of  which  Emerson  never 

1  I  speak  in  this  matter  from  positive  knowledge,  having  had  in 
my  possession  the  manuscript  volume  in  Emerson's  and  Channing's 
handwriting,  which  contained  passages  copied  by  Emerson  himself 
(mostly),  but  sometimes  by  Channing,  from  the  original  Emerson 
Journals  of  1843-48,  and  a  few  others.  It  also  had  remarks  made 
in  conversation  by  Emerson,  copied  in  by  Channing,  and  verses  and 
epigrams.  I  have  also  the  letters,  on  Channing's  side,  relating  to 
this  proposed  book,  —  "  Country  Walking,"  —  but  not  Emerson's 
replies.  Those,  if  preserved,  are  probably  in  the  large  mass  of  Em 
erson's  letters,  of  which  comparatively  few  have  been  printed, 
except  the  correspondence  with  Carlyle,  Sterling,  S.  G.  Ward, 
and  Thoreau.  Occasionally  Emerson  spoke  of  this  matter  to  me;  but 
at  a  time  when  his  memory  for  recent  events  was  much  impaired; 
and  though  I  think  he  took  an  active  and  decisive  part  in  suppress 
ing  the  publication  of  the  book,  it  is  quite  likely  that  he  valued 
some  parts  of  the  manuscript,  which  came  to  me  after  his  death, 
but  with  no  comment  from  him. 

[490] 


DEATH   AND    REBIRTH 

consented,  Channing  took  "copy"  enough  to 
make  eighty  pages  in  my  reprint  of  his  book  in 
1902,  and  sent  it  to  be  embodied  in  the  midst  of 
his  first  edition  of  1873,  —  but  without  indicat 
ing  which  of  the  three  walkers  was  the  spokes 
man.  I  supplied  the  omission,  partly  by  conjec 
ture,  and  indexed  the  whole  work  in  the  second 
edition. 

Although  this  capricious  mode  of  treating  his 
biographical  subject  confused  the  order  of  the 
book,  and  lessened  its  value,  yet  this  volume  of 
1873,  by  the  merit  of  its  descriptions  and  the 
care  with  which  selections  were  made  from  the 
then  unknown  pages  of  the  Journals,  has  become 
the  indispensable  guide  to  all  who  would  get  to 
the  secret  of  the  charm  which  Thoreau  exercises 
over  a  constantly  increasing  number,  and  a  bet 
tering  quality  of  readers.  For  the  careful,  logical 
analysis  of  Thoreau's  mental  and  moral  quali 
ties,  no  book  is  better  or  fairer  than  Mr.  Salt's 
first  of  two  biographies,  published  by  Bentley  at 
London  in  1890. 

Channing's  pathetic  description  of  his  friend's 
last  illness  has  often  been  quoted,  and  a  few  lines 
may  be  cited  here:  — 

No  man  had  a  better  unfinished  life.  His  anticipa 
tions  were  vastly  rich;  more  reading  was  to  be  done  in 

[  491  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

Shakespeare  and  the  Bible;  more  choice  apple-trees  to 
be  set  in  uncounted  springs;  for  his  chief  principle  was 
faith  in  all  things,  thoughts  and  times.  He  expected, 
as  he  said,  to  live  for  forty  years.  .  .  .  With  an  unfalter 
ing  trust  in  God's  mercies,  and  never  deserted  by  his 
good  genius,  he  most  bravely  and  unsparingly  passed 
down  the  inclined  plane  of  a  terrible  malady,  —  work 
ing  steadily  at  the  completing  of  his  papers,  to  his  last 
hours,  or  so  long  as  he  could  hold  the  pencil  in  his 
trembling  fingers.  He  retired  into  his  inner  mind,  — 
into  that  unknown,  unconscious,  profound  world  of 
existence,  where  he  excelled;  there  he  held  inscrutable 
converse  with  just  men  made  perfect,  absorbed  in 
himself. 

From  a  different  and  nearer  point  of  view,— 
though  few  were  nearer  than   Channing,  —  his 
sister  Sophia  wrote,  a  month  before  his  death:1  — 

Since  the  autumn  he  has  been  gradually  failing,  and 
is  now  the  embodiment  of  weakness;  still,  he  enjoys 
seeing  his  friends;  and  every  bright  hour  he  devotes  to 
his  manuscripts,  which  he  is  preparing  for  publication. 
For  many  weeks  he  has  spoken  only  in  a  faint  whisper. 
Henry  accepts  this  dispensation  with  such  childlike 
trust,  and  is  so  happy,  that  I  feel  as  if  he  were  being 
translated,  rather  than  dying  in  the  ordinary  way  of 
mortals.  It  was  not  possible  to  be  sad  in  his  presence. 
No  shadow  of  gloom  attaches  to  anything  connected 
with  my  precious  brother.  His  whole  life  impresses  me 
as  a  grand  miracle.  I  always  thought  him  the  most 
1  [Thoreau  died  May  6,  1862.] 
[  492  ] 


DEATH    AND    REBIRTH 

upright  man  I  ever  knew;  and  now  it  is  a  pleasure  to 
praise  him. 

With  this  conception  and  this  memory  of 
Henry  Thoreau,  it  was  with  indignation  that  his 
family  and  friends  read  the  misconceptions  of 
him  published  by  Lowell  and  others.  Time  has 
set  them  all  aside,  —  as  will  be  seen  by  citing 
them:  — 

He  was  not  by  nature  an  observer;  he  had  no  power 
of  generalization  from  outside  of  himself;  he  discovered 
nothing;  neither  his  attention  nor  his  genius  was  of  the 
spontaneous  kind;  intellectual  selfishness  becomes  al 
most  painful  in  reading  him.  An  itch  of  originality 
infects  his  thought  and  style.  He  confounded  physical 
with  spiritual  remoteness  from  men.  He  had  not  a 
healthy  mind;  his  whole  life  was  a  search  for  the 
doctor.  He  had  no  humor,  and  was  a  sorry  logician. 
His  shanty  life  was  a  mere  impossibility.  He  was  a 
skulker. 

All  this  absurdity  is  Lowell's,  with  the  excep 
tion  of  the  last  insult,  which  was  the  ignorant 
assumption  of  Stevenson. 

Time  and  the  verdict  of  mankind,  "after  some 
time  be  past,"  settle  many  questions  about  which 
men  dispute.  St.  Augustine  said,  "  Securus  judi- 
cat  orbis  terrarum";  the  round  world  has  taken 
Thoreau's  case  in  hand;  and  while  his  country- 

[  493  ] 


HENRY   DAVID   THOREAU 

men  have  printed  or  mean  to  print  every  word 
he  wrote  or  said,  if  they  can  get  a  copy  of  it,  he 
has  been  translated  in  bits  into  many  foreign 
languages,  and  is  an  essential  chapter  in  that 
practical-mystical  philosophy  miscalled  Transcen 
dentalism.  Few  writers  have  seen  the  invisible 
more  clearly,  or  transcribed  it  more  legibly  into 
the  language  of  common  life.  He  was  a  student 
in  Emerson's  school,  a  brother  to  Emerson's 
thought;  but  never  an  imitator  of  him  or  of  other 
men.  The  distinction  between  these  two  was 
justly  stated  by  the  elder  brother,  when  Emer 
son  said:  — 

In  reading  Thoreau,  I  find  the  same  thoughts,  the 
same  spirit  that  is  in  me;  but  he  takes  a  step  beyond, 
and  illustrates  by  excellent  images,  that  which  I  should 
have  conveyed  by  a  sleepy  generalization.  He  has 
muscle,  and  ventures  on*and  performs  feats  which  I  am 
forced  to  decline.  'T  is  as  if  I  went  into  a  gymnasium, 
and  saw  youths  leap  and  climb  and  swing,  with  a  force 
unapproachable,  though  their  feats  are  only  a  continua 
tion  of  my  initial  grapplings  and  jumps. 

A  point  which  is  apt  to  be  overlooked  in  por 
traying  the  Concord  authors  was  yet  an  essen 
tial  feature  of  their  individual  characters  —  their 
effect  on  each  other  by  reason  of  their  daily  inter 
course.  It  modified  in  each  the  otherwise  too  per- 

[  494  ] 


DEATH    AND    REBIRTH 

sonal  quality  of  his  intellect;  and  when  they  were 
separated  for  a  long  interval,  that  good  effect 
was  in  some  degree  lost.  Emerson  himself  points 
out  the  effect  Alcott  had  upon  him  when  he  says 
in  his  Journal  of  1857:  — 

Alcott  is  good  as  a  lens,  or  mirror,  —  a  beautiful 
susceptibility,  every  impression  on  which  is  to  be  ac 
counted  for,  and  until  accounted  for,  registered  as  an 
addition  to  our  catalogue  of  natural  facts.  It  needs  one 
acquainted  with  the  lens  by  frequent  use  to  make  al 
lowance  for  defects;  but 't  is  the  best  instrument  I  ever 
met  with. 

What  Emerson  acquired  thus  from  Alcott  was 
more  than  Alcott  derived  from  him;  and  it  is 
quite  possible  that  the  same  was  as  true  of  Tho- 
reau  and  of  Channing;  for  Emerson  had  greater 
powers  of  assimilation  than  these  younger  and 
more  wilful  friends.  It  was  even  more  true  in  the 
relation  between  Emerson  and  Carlyle. 

However  he  came  by  it,  the  reading  world  soon 
discovered  for  itself  a  forcible  quality  in  Tho- 
reau  which  could  not  have  been  learned  from 
Emerson,  because  it  did  not  exist  even  in  that 
rich  and  varied  intellect.  His  humor  was  not  ex 
actly  Emerson's  humor;  his  accuracy  went  be 
yond  Emerson's;  his  curiosity  and  his  patience 
went  beyond  Emerson's.  His  conception  of  beauty 

[495  ] 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

was  perhaps  more  profound,  yet  his  taste  was  not 
so  perfect;  his  relation  to  music,  and,  in  a  general 
way,  to  the  objects  of  the  five  senses,  was  keener 
and  more  intimate:  for  he  saw  and  heard  and 
tasted,  touched  and  smelt  with  a  greater  sensi 
tiveness.  Possibly  this  accounts  for  his  more  pro 
voking  censoriousness;  for  it  was  this  defect  that 
threw  him  so  much  and  so  early  into  opposition 
to  the  world  of  men  around  him.  He  needed  more 
than  most  to  remember  that  wise  maxim,  — 

"Men  should  be  taught  as  though  you  taught  them  not, 
And  things  unknown  proposed  as  things  forgot." 

Particularly  he  needed  to  act  upon  this  hint  in  a 
community  of  which  intolerance  was  a  chief  and 
profound  characteristic.  It  was  in  excess  even  in 
the  real  urbanity  of  Thoreau's  nature  —  a  qual 
ity  in  which  Emerson  far  excelled  him.  Will  and 
affection  —  two  qualities  that,  where  they  exist 
strongly,  are  wont  to  polarize  each  other,  or  else 
to  double  the  force  of  each  —  reigned  alternately 
in  Thoreau's  nature;  and  their  interaction  ac 
counts  for  those  pathetic  seasons  when  he  felt 
estranged  from  those  few  superior  persons  with 
whom  he  formed  leagues  of  friendship.  With 
all  his  philanthropy,  and  his  acute  sense  of  jus 
tice,  he  was  apt  to  be  exclusive;  as  when  he  said, 
"Nature  meant  kindly  by  us  when  she  made  our 

[  496  ] 


DEATH    AND    REBIRTH 

brothers  few."  And  he  meant  kindly  by  man 
kind  when  he  did  not  expect  them  to  come  too 
near.  He  was  not  so  great  an  admirer  of  Bacon 
as  of  Raleigh;'  yet  what  Bacon  said  of  philan 
thropy  must  have  pleased  him,  for  he  exemplified 
it  in  action:  — 

I  take  Goodness  in  this  sense  —  the  affecting  of  the 
weal  of  men;  which  is  that  the  Grecians  call  Philan- 
thropia;  and  the  word  "humanity,"  as  it  is  used,  is  a 
little  too  light  to  express  it.  Goodness  I  call  the  habit, 
and  goodness  of  nature  the  inclination.  This,  of  all 
virtues  and  dignities  of  the  mind,  is  the  greatest,  being 
the  character  of  the  Deity:  and  without  it  man  is  a 
busy,  mischievous,  wretched  thing,  no  better  than  a 
kind  of  vermin. 

Having  this  quality,  and  being,  indeed,  a  "uni 
versal  lover  of  mankind,"  the  human  race  found 
it  out,  and  began  to  reciprocate  in  kind.  They 
read  him  more  and  more,  because  they  found 
that  he  cared  for  them  too  much  to  flatter  them. 
Hence  what  I  call  his  literary  rebirth.  When  the 
critics,  who  are  apt  to  fancy  that  literature  exists 
by  their  patronage  (a  superstition  as  rife  as  any 
where  in  the  Cambridge  of  the  "North  Ameri 
can  Review"),  thought  they  were  giving  Thoreau, 
at  his  death,  his  proper  place,  the  rest  of  the 
world  said  to  itself,  "We  will  look  into  this; 

f  497  1 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

there  is  something  about  this  writer  that  seems 
to  be  attractive";  and  they  read  him  all  the  more 
for  this  dispraise.  He  is  now  probably  more  read 
by  the  unlearned,  and  more  appreciated  by  the 
learned,  than  ever  before.  My  purpose  in  this 
volume  has  been  to  show  how  he  cooperated  in 
his  own  posthumous  fame;  how  he  built  himself 
up  in  literature  from  boyhood,  and  that  without 
becoming  a  pedant,  or  trying  to  form  a  school, 
or  even  a  class.  Along  with  this  conception  of  him 
may  go  likewise  what  I  personally  feel,  that  there 
was  a  religious  and  a  moral  element  in  his  nature 
which  awaits  the  future  for  its  full  development, 
as  Channing  intimates  in  one  of  his  final  pages:  — 

Possibly  the  future  may  determine  that  our  village 
life,  unknown  and  unnoticed,  without  name  and  in 
fluence  in  the  present,  was  essential  and  vital,  —  as 
were  the  realities  he  affected,  the  immutable  truths  he 
taught.  Endowed  with  unusual  force  and  sagacity,  if 
he  did  not  shine  in  public  council,  or  lead  the  State,  he 
yet  defended  the  right,  and  was  not  the  idle  spectator 
of  wrong  and  oppression.  He  showed  that  the  private 
man  can  be  a  church  and  state  and  law  unto  himself. 
In  a  possible  New  England,  he  may  stand  for  the  type 
of  coming  men,  who  shall  invent  new  forms  and  truer 
modes  of  mortal  society. 

It  must  have  been  of  his  vanished  friend,  too, 
that  this  poet  was  musing,  when  he  wrote  in  his 


DEATH   AND    REBIRTH 

colloquial  poem  "The  Wanderer,"  of  this  rural 
Scholar:  — 

"Be  his  the  Good  to  teach,  more  than  the  Old; 
Revolving  new  society,  new  laws, 
Where'er  the  face  of  things  smiles  or  grows  sad, 
While  far  below,  beyond,  the  sandy  lake 
Bears  her  retreating  skies,  and  clouds  the  earth,  — 
The  Scholar  gleans,  his  faithful  eye  profound 
To  read  the  secret  in  each  thing  he  sees,  — 
To  love,  if  not  to  know." 

There  is  an  early  poem  of  Thoreau's,  without 
date,  and  which  few  of  his  friends  had  seen  until 
after  his  death,  when  Sophia  gave  it  to  me,  along 
with  others,  for  printing  in  the  "Boston  Common 
wealth"  in  the  autumn  of  1863.  Upon  showing  it 
in  print  to  Marston  Watson,  of  Plymouth,  who 
had  married  the  "Maiden  in  the  East"  (Miss 
Mary  Russell),  he  wrote  me  that  it  had  been  cop 
ied  by  her  into  a  collection  of  verses  made  by  her 
while  she  lived  in  Concord,  or  soon  after,  —  he 
thought  as  early  as  1843.  If  so,  it  must  have  had 
reference  to  his  first  residence  with  the  Emerson 
family,  and  his  leaving  there  before  going  to  reside 
for  a  few  months  in  the  family  of  William  Emerson 
at  Staten  Island,  in  the  spring  of  1843;  to  which 
he  had  never  so  intimate  a  relation  as  with  the 
Emersons  in  Concord. 

But  it  is  a  symbolical  poem,  like  many  that  he 
f  499  1 


HENRY    DAVID   THOREAU 

wrote,  both  finished  and  unfinished ;  and  may  well 
portray  incidents  in  his  whole  Voyage  of  Life, 
viewed  by  him  imaginatively  as  his  wont  ever  was. 
I  called  it,  when  first  giving  it  to  the  public,  — 

The  Departure 

I 

In  this  roadstead  I  have  ridden, 
In  this  covert  I  have  hidden : 
Friendly  thoughts  were  cliffs  to  me, 
And  I  hid  beneath  their  lee. 

This  true  people  took  the  stranger, 
And  warm-hearted  house  the  ranger;     • 
They  received  their  roving  guest, 
And  have  fed  him  with  the  best; 

Whatsoe'er  the  land  afforded 
To  the  stranger's  wish  accorded, 
Shook  the  olive,  stripped  the  vine, 
And  expressed  the  strengthening  wine. 

And  by  night  they  did  spread  o'er  him 
What  by  day  they  spread  before  him; 
That  good-will  which  was  repast 
Was  his  covering  at  last. 

The  stranger  moored  him  to  their  pier 
Without  anxiety  or  fear: 
By  day  he  walked  the  sloping  land,  — 
By  night  the  gentle  heavens  he  scanned. 

[  500  1 


DEATH   AND    REBIRTH 
II 

When  first  his  barque  stood  inland 
To  the  coast  of  that  far  Finland, 
Sweet-watered  brooks  came  tumbling  to  the  shore, 
The  weary  mariner  to  restore. 

And  still  he  stayed  from  day  to  day,  — 
If  he  their  kindness  might  repay: 
But  more  and  more 
The  sullen  waves  came  rolling  toward  the  shore. 

And  still  the  more  the  stranger  waited, 
The  less  his  argosy  was  freighted; 
And  still  the  more  he  stayed, 
The  less  his  debt  was  paid. 

Ill 

So  he  unfurled  his  shrouded  mast 
To  receive  the  fragrant  blast,  — 
And  that  same  refreshing  gale 
Which  had  wooed  him  to  remain 

Again  and  again 
It  was  that  filled  his  sail 
And  drove  him  to  the  Mam. 

All  day  the  low-hung  clouds 
Dropped  tears  into  the  sea, 
And  the  wind  amid  the  shrouds 
Sighed  plaintively. 

Let  us  accept  these  quaint  stanzas  now,  with 
their  haunting  melody  and  their  youthful  sad- 

[501  ] 


HENRY   DAVID  THOREAU 

ness,  —  so  much  at  variance  with  his  habitual 
good  cheer  and  his  sober  beatitudes,  —  as  his 
log-book  of  the  Voyage  of  Life,  reduced  to  one 
brief  page.  His  sailing  directions  were  copied  in 
his  own  hand,  and  long  since  printed  by  his  friend 
Emerson,  thus:  — 

Great  God!  I  ask  thee  for  no  meaner  pelf 
Than  that  I  may  not  disappoint  myself; 
That  in  my  action  I  may  soar  as  high 
As  I  can  now  discern  with  this  clear  eye; 

And  next  in  value,  which  Thy  kindness  lends, 
That  I  may  greatly  disappoint  my  friends; 
Howe'er  they  think  or  hope  that  it  may  be, 
They  may  not  dream  how  thou'st  distinguished  me; 

That  my  weak  hand  may  equal  my  firm  faith, 
And  my  life  practice  more  than  my  tongue  saith; 
That  my  low  conduct  may  not  show, 

Nor  my  relenting  lines, 
That  I  Thy  purpose  did  not  know, 
Or  overrated  Thy  designs. 

And  the  final  issue  of  that  voyage  cannot  better 
be  summed  up  than  in  the  words  spoken  by  Emer 
son  over  his  coffin:  — 

His  soul  was  made  for  the  noblest  society;  he  had  in 
a  short  life  exhausted  the  capabilities  of  this  world; 
wherever  there  is  knowledge,  wherever  there  is  virtue, 
wherever  there  is  beauty,  he  will  find  a  home. 

THE  END 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


LIBRARY  OF  HENRY  D.  THOREAU 

THREE  lists  of  his  books  seem  to  have  been  made  out  by 
Thoreau,  —  the  first  in  1836,  the  second  in  1840,  and  the 
third  from  time  to  time,  but  completed  late  in  his  life,  since 
it  contains  books  only  printed  in  1860-61.  As  it  stands  in 
this  Index  Rerum  it  is  wholly  in  his  handwriting.  His  books 
were  scattered  at  his  death,  many  volumes  being  given  to 
his  friends  and  to  the  Town  Library,  at  his  selection;  others 
were  given  away  by  Sophia,  and  a  few  sold  at  the  small  auc 
tion  of  her  furniture,  etc.,  as  she  was  leaving  Concord  for 
Bangor  about  1873-74.  She  died  in  October,  1876,  and 
doubtless  the  books  she  carried  to  Bangor  were  there  given 
away,  or  left  at  her  death  to  her  cousins  Lowell  and 
Thatcher.  None  remained  in  her  house  at  Concord,  in 
which  I  succeeded  her,  as  her  tenant,  in  the  autumn  of  1873; 
but  Thoreau's  Journals  were  there,  until  she  had  them  re 
moved  to  the  Town  Library  in  1874,  fearing  that  Ellery 
Channing  would  have  access  to  them  if  they  remained  with 
me. 

The  second  list  is  as  follows:  — 

1840.  LIST  OF  BOOKS  BELONGING  TO  H.  D.  T. 
(Enlarged  from  one  of  A.D.  MDCCCXXXVI) 

1.  Byron's  Works.   New  York  edition  by  Halleck 1  v. 

2.  Coleridge,  Shelley  &  Keats.  Philad.  ed 1  V. 

3.  Aikin's  British  Poets.  Philad.  ed 1  v. 

4.  Burns.  London,  diamond  ed 2  v. 

[  505  ] 


APPENDIX 

5.  Fables  &c.  De  La  Fontaine.  [French  ?] 1  v. 

6.  Tasso's  Gerusalemme  Lib.  Firenze  ed 9  v. 

7.  Hoole's  Ariosto.  London  ed 1  v. 

8.  Juvenalis  et  Persii  Delphini.  Philad.  ed 1  v. 

9.  Ovid  Delphini.  Philad.  ed 1  v. 

10.  Virgilii  Delphini.  Philad.  ed 1  v. 

11.  Horatius,  ex  ed.    J.  C.  Zeunii.  Londini-Novo-Eboraci 

[London  &  N.  YJ 1  v. 

12.  Horatius,  Cura  B.  A.  Gould.  Bostoniae 1  v. 

13.  Homeri  Bias.  Felton  ed.  Boston 1  v. 

14.  Dante.  Avignone  ed 3  v. 

15.  Dryden's  Virgil.  Philad.  ed.  [A  "pony"?] 2  v. 

16.  Marmion.  Baltimore  ed 1  v. 

17.  Wordsworth's    Poetical    Works,    ed.     Henry    Reed, 

Philad 1  v. 

[In  a  later  hand]  "New  and  Old." 1  v. 

18.  Virgilius.  Londini,  1822 1  v. 

[The  next  14  titles  in  the  later  hand,  not  num 
bered.] 

Milton's  Poetical  Works.  [Boston  edition  probably.] . .  3  v. 

Pope's  Works  (2nd  stolen) 5  v. 

2  cops.  Virgilii  Delphini.  [Probably  Helen's  copy.].. . .  1  v. 

The  Woodman  and  Other  Poems.    [Channing's,  1849.]  1  v. 

Pindar,  Anacreon,  etc.  [Probably  from  Greaves  Lib 
rary.]  1  v. 

Orpheus.    [Probably  from  Greaves  Library.] 1  v. 

Poetse  Minores  Graeci.  [Probably  from  Greaves  Lib 
rary.]  1  v. 

Emerson's  Poems.  [Edition  of  1847.] 1  v. 

Dante's  Inferno,  John  Carlyle 1  v. 

Airs  of  Palestine,  Pierpont 1  v. 

In  Memoriam,  Tennyson 1  v. 

Prelude  or  &c.  Wordsworth 1  v. 

Poems  of  Ossian 1  v. 

Wild  Flowers,  Rouquette.  [Probably  French-Canadian.]  1  v. 

[Here  the  unnumbered  volumes  end  for  the  present, — 
Channing's  "Near  Home"  of  1858  being  pencilled  in, 
but  effaced,  because  entered  below.] 

[506] 


APPENDIX 

DRAMA 
[The  word  "Drama"  is  crossed  out  in  pencil] 

1.  Shakespeare,  ed.  Stevens,  Hartford 2  v. 

2.  Maria  Stuart,  Stuttgart  und  Tubingen  ed.    [German.]  1  v. 

3.  British  Drama.  Philad.  ed 2  v. 

4.  Teatro  Scelto  Italiano.  Cambrigia  ed 1  v. 

5.  Medea,  ed.  C.  Beck,  Cambridge.    [Seneca  ?] 1  v. 

6.  Sophocles'  Tragced.   Lipsiae  ed 1  v. 

7.  Tasso.  Ein  Schauspiel  von  Goethe 1  v. 

8.  Euripides'  Tragcedise.    Lipsiae  ed.,  4  vols  in  1858 2  v. 

[Here  comes,  in  the  later  hand  (pencil),  after  1858.] 

Poems  by  W.  E.  Channing.    [Ed.  1843.] 1  v. 

Poems  by  W.  E.  Channing,  2nd  series.  [1847.] 1  v. 

Leaves  of  Grass.  [1st  ed.,  1855.] 1  v. 

Cowper's  Task.  [Perhaps  given  by  D.  Ricketson .]....  1  v. 
The  Music  Master,  etc.  Allingham.  [From  Emerson?]  1  v. 
Leaves  of  Grass,  2nd  edition  [1858.]  [1  v.,  but  not  so 

entered.] 

Near  Home,  by  W.  E.  C. 
Percy's  Reliques 1  v. 

[Here  the  later  hand  ceases  again.  In  addition  to 
the  above  Poems,  Thoreau  had  a  commonplace  book, 
chiefly  of  poetry,  300  manuscript  pages,  copied  in  the 
Harvard  College  Library  and  at  New  York  before 
1844.] 

HISTORY  AND  GEOGRAPHY 

1.  History  of  Concord  [Shattuck's] 1  v. 

2.  History  of  Haverhill.  By  B.  L.  Mirick,  Haverhill 1  v. 

[This  was  Whittier's.  Did  Thoreau  know  it?  Not 
in  1840.] 

3.  History  of  the  United  States 1  v. 

4.  Guthrie's  Grammar.  London  ed.   1787 1  v. 

5.  Tytler's  History.  Concord,  N.H.,  ed 1  v. 

6.  Indian  Wars.  By  William  Hubbard.  Worcester  ed . . .     1  v. 

7.  Caesar's  Commentarii.  Lipsise  ed 1  v. 

8.  Sewel's  Hist,  of  the  Quakers.    Burlington,  N.J.  ed., 

1774 1  v. 

[507  ] 


APPENDIX 

9.  New  Hampshire  Historical  Collections 3  v. 

10.  Schiller's  Dreyssigjariger  Krieg.    Leipzig  ed 2  v. 

11.  Winthrop's  Journal.  [Savage's  edition.] 1  v. 

12.  Athens,  its  Rise  and  Fall.    By  E.  L.  Bulwer,  New 

York 2  v. 

13.  Morse's  Geography.  Boston  ed 1  v. 

14.  French  Revolution.   By  T.  Carlyle,  Boston,  3  vols.  in  2  v. 

15.  New  England  Gazetteer.  By  Hayward,  Concord,  N.H.  1  v. 

16.  Q.  Curtius  Rufus,  Hist.  Alex.  Mag.  Lipsise 1  v. 

17.  Hist,  de  Russie  sous  Pierre-le-Grand.     Par  Voltaire. 

Paris 2  v. 

18.  Rollin 4  v. 

[In  a  later  hand,  without  numbers.] 

Finley's  Atlas 1  v. 

Hist,  of  the  Old  Township  of  Dunstable 1  v. 

[This  was  G.  J.  Fox's  book,  bought  at  a  door  in 
Nashua,  as  related  by  Channing  in  his  Life  of  Tho- 
reau.] 

Morse's  Am.  Gazetteer 1  v. 

Froissart.  Lond.  Bohn.  [Given  to  Channing.] 2  v. 

Canadian  Guide  Book 1  v. 

Church's  History  of  King  Philip's  War 1  v. 

Mineral  Region  of  Lake  Superior.  [Cabot's?] 1  v. 

La  Decouverte  des  Sources  du  Mississippi 1  v. 

Long's  Classical  Atlas 1  v. 

Literature  of  Am.  Local  History 1  v. 

Documentary  Hist,  of  New  York.   [The  earlier  vols.]  .  4  v. 

Hist,  of  New  Bedford.  [By  D.  Ricketson.] 1  v. 

[Now  resumes  the  list  of  1840,  numbered.] 

BIOGRAPHY 

1.  Hutchinson's  Xenophon,  Philad 1  v. 

[This  is  not  the  whole  of  Xenophon,  but  only  his  dull 
novel,  the  Cyropsedia  in  Greek  and  Latin,  edited  by 
Thomas  Hutchinson,  A.M.  "Editio  Prima  Ameri 
cana."  Cura  Johannis  Watts,  Philadelphise,  1806. 
Impressis  Wm.  Poyntrell  et  Soc.] 

2.  Life  of  Cowper.  By  Hayley.  Boston 2  v. 

3.  Life  of  Newton.  Fam.  Lib.  New  York 1  v. 

[508] 


APPENDIX 

4.  Life  of  Charlemagne.  Fam.  Lib.  New  York 1  v. 

5.  Life  of  George  IV.   Fam.  Lib.  New  York 1  v. 

6.  Life  of  Cromwell.  Fam.  Lib.  New  York 2  v. 

7.  Franklin.  By  Himself.   Salem 1  v. 

8.  Charles  Douze.    Par  Voltaire.    [Famous  Charles  XII.]  1  v. 

9.  Plutarch's  Lives.    New  York.     [Langhorne's  transla 

tion  cheap.] 1  v. 

10.  Life  of  Schiller.  By  Carlyle.  New  York 1  v. 

11.  Biographical  Dictionary.    J.  L.  Blake 1  v. 

[In  a  later  hand.] 

Belknap's  Am.  Biography.   2nd  vol 1  v. 

John  Churchman,  Ac.  of i 1  v. 

Hist,  of  the  Ojibway  Nation 1  v. 

Life  of  John  Brown.   [Redpath's,  1860] 1  v. 

[Thoreau  was  urged  by  Mrs.  G.  L.  Stearns  to  write 
a  better  Life  of  Brown,  but  was  so  occupied  with 
his  Indian  collections  that  he  declined.  He  has  con 
tributed  much  to  the  later  lives,  as  may  be  seen  in  his 
Journals.] 

MATHEMATICS  PURE  AND  MIXED 

1.  Mechanics.    By  Farrar.    Cambridge.    [Thoreau's  Pro 

fessor.]  1  v. 

2.  Optics.  By  Farrar.  Cambridge 1  v. 

3.  Elec.   Magnet  and  Elec.  Magneticism.    By  Farrar. 
Cambridge 1  v. 

4.  Astronomy.  By  Farrar.  Cambridge 1  v. 

5.  Grund's  Geometry.   [F.  J.  Grund,  a  German.] 1  v. 

6.  Euler's  Algebra.  Boston 1  v. 

7.  Logarithms.  Boston 1  v. 

8.  Smyth's  Algebra.  Portland 1  v. 

9.  Emerson's  Arithmetic,  3rd  p't 1  v. 

10.  Key  to  2nd  and  3rd  parts  do 1  v. 

11.  Atkinson's  Epitome  of  the  Art  of  Navigation.  London, 

1758 1  v. 

[This  was  probably  a  book  belonging  to  the  first 
John  Thoreau  in  America,  who  was  a  seaman  from 
Jersey,  and  sailed  vessels,  as  well  as  privateered  and 
traded  in  Boston.  He  died  at  Concord  in  1801.] 

[  509  ] 


APPENDIX 

[In  a  later  hand.] 

Legendre's  Geometry 1  v. 

Da  vies'  Surveying 1  v. 

Davies'  Grammar  of  Arithmetic 1  v. 

Bache's  Report  on  the  Coast  Survey  ('51) 1  v. 

Bailey's  Algebra 1  v. 

Colburn's  Algebra 1  v. 

Report  of  Coast  Survey  for  '52.  2  copies 1  v. 

Report  of  Coast  Survey  for  '53,  '50  &  '54.  '55,  '56,  '57,  '58  3  v. 

[In  all  five  volumes  of  these  Reports,  sent  him  by  his 
friend  Loomis,  who  married  Miss  Wilder  and  is  the 
father  of  Mrs.  Todd  of  Amherst.] 

Am.  Ephemeris  and  Nautical  Almanac 1  v. 

Sketches  Ac.  Coast  Survey  Rep.  for  '51 1  v. 

[Both  the  last  were  sent  by  Mr.  Loomis,  then  in  the 
Nautical  Almanac  Office  at  Washington.] 

PHILOSOPHY.  METAPHYSICS,  THEOLOGY 

1.  Paley's  Philosophy,  2  vols.    London  —  1st  v 1  v. 

2.  Paley's  Works.  Philad 1  v. 

3.  Stewart's  Philosophy.  Cambridge 2  v. 

4.  Butler's  Analogy.   Cambridge 1  v. 

5.  Locke  on  the  Human  Understanding.  Philad 1  v. 

6.  Whately's  Logic.  Cambridge 1  v. 

7.  Whately's  Rhetoric.  Cambridge 1  v. 

8.  Bible.  New  York 1  v. 

9.  Greek  Testament.  Worcester? 1  v. 

10.  Smellie's  Philosophy 1  v. 

11.  Emerson's  Nature.    [The  rare  first  edition,  of  course.] 

Boston 1  v. 

12.  Blair's  Sermons.  Boston 2  v. 

13.  Zimmerman  on  Solitude.  Albany 1  v. 

14.  Abercrombie  on  the  Intel.  Powers.  Fam.  Lib 1  v. 

15.  Massillon's  Sermons.  Brooklyn.  Tr.  by  Dickson 2  v. 

La  Thebaide  en  Amerique 1  v. 

Spiritual  Science 1  v. 

Bible,  folio.  Grandfather's 1  v. 

[Which  Grandfather?  Most  likely  Rev.  Asa  Dunbar, 
not  John  Thoreau.] 

[510] 


APPENDIX 

PHILOLOGY 

1.  Ainsworth's  Latin  Dictionary,  Abridged.  Philad 1  v. 

2.  Latin  Grammar.  By  Adam.  N.Y 1  v. 

3.  Latin  Grammar.  By  Gould 1  v. 

4.  German  Dictionary.  Philad 1  v. 

5.  German  Reader.  By  Follen.  Boston 1  v. 

6.  German  Grammar.  By  Follen.  Boston 1  v. 

7.  Pickering's  Greek  Lexicon.   Boston 1  v. 

8.  Greek  Grammar.  By  Buttmann.  Boston 1  v. 

9.  Boyer's  Dictionary  [French].  Boston 1  v. 

10.  French  Grammar.  By  Surault.  Boston 1  v. 

11.  Gruglia's  Dictionary.  Boston 1  v. 

12.  Italian  Grammar.  By  Bachi.  Boston 1  v. 

13.  Spanish  and  English  Dictionary.  By  Neuman 2  v. 

14.  Spanish  Grammar.  By  Sales.  Boston 1  v. 

15.  Spanish  Grammar.  ^By  Bachi.  Boston 1  v. 

16.  Bailey's  Dictionary 1  v. 

17.  Johnson  and  Walker's  Dictionary,  Abridged.  Boston. .  1  v. 

18.  Murray's  Grammar.  Hallowell.  2  copies 1  v. 

19.  Kirkham's  Grammar.  Baltimore 1  v. 

20.  Comprehensive  Grammar  &c.  By  Felch,  Boston 1  v. 

Goldsbury's  Seq.  to  Com.  School  Grammar 1  v. 

Significance  of  the  Alphabet  (Kraitsir) 1  v. 

Webster's  Dictionary,  Unabridged 1  v. 

Grammar  of  Arithmetic 1  v. 

Roget's  Thesaurus 1  v. 

Bartlett,  Dictionary  of  Americanisms 1  v. 

Wright's  Provincial  Dictionary 2  v. 

Oswald's  Etymological  Dictionary 1  v. 

Andrew's  Latin-English  Lexicon 1  v. 


MISCELLANEOUS 

1.  Curiosities  of  Lit.  By  D'  Israeli.  N.  Y. 

2.  Ciceronis  Orationes 

3.  Grund's  Chemistry.  Boston 

4.  Lord  Bacon's  Essays.  Boston 

5.  Telemaque.  Besancpn 

6.  McLellan's  Journal 


[511  ] 


APPENDIX 

7.  Beauties  of  Chesterfield.  Boston 1  v. 

8.  Hawes'  Lectures.  Hartford 1  v. 

9.  Ware  on  the  Formation  of  the  Christian  Ch.  Boston. .  1  v.' 

10.  A  Discourse  by  the  Rev.  David  Clarkson.  Lond.  1688 . .  1  v. 

11.  The  Universal  Preceptor.  Greenfield 1  v. 

12.  Gonzalve  De  Cordove.  Par  Florian.  Paris 1  v. 

13.  Goldsmith's  Miscellaneous  Works.  Philad 1  v. 

14.  Lempriere's  Clas.  Diet.  New  York 1  v. 

15.  Say's  Political  Economy.  Philad 1  v. 

16.  Prose  Italiane.  By  Bachi.   Cambridge 1  v. 

17.  Iriarte.  Moratin.   Boston 1  v. 

18.  Cartas  Marruecas  y  Poesias.  Boston 1  v. 

19.  Foster's  Essays  on  Decision  of  Character.  Boston ....  1  v. 

20.  Story's  Commentaries,  Abridg.  Boston 1  v. 

21.  Discourses,  Reviews  and  Miscellanies.      By     W.     E. 

Channing,  Boston 1  v. 

22.  American  First  Class  Book 1  v. 

23.  First  Class  Reader.  By  Emerson.  Boston 1  v. 

24.  Introduction  to  the  National  Reader.  Pierpont.  Boston  1  v. 

25.  Beauties  of  Sterne 1  v. 

26.  Milton's  Prose  Works.  Selected.  Boston 2  v. 

27.  Carlyle's  Miscellanies.  Boston 4  v. 

28.  Tatler.  2nd  vol.  London,  1723 1  v. 

29.  Conversations  on  the  Gospels,  Boston.    [Alcott's  vol 

umes.]  2  v. 

30.  Record  of  a  School.    [Miss  Peabody's  Report  of  Al 

cott's  School.]   Boston 1  v. 

31.  Goethe's  Wilhelm  Meister.  Boston 5  v. 

32.  Gunderode.  (From  the  German.) 1  v. 

33.  Guizot's  Essay  on  Washington 1  v. 

34.  New  Views  by  Brownson  [Orestes  A.  —  friend  of  Tho- 

reau  then] 1  v. 

35.  Verplanck's  Lit.  and  Hist.  Discourses 1  v. 

36.  Spectator  [Addison's] 1  v. 

37.  Report  on  Fishes,  Reptiles,  and  Birds.   [Of  Massachu 

setts?]  1  v. 

38.  How  to  Observe.  Miss  Martineau 1  v. 

39.  ./Esthetic  Papers.  [Miss  Peabody's  Collection  of  1849.] .  1  v. 

40.  Emerson's  Nature.  [Probably  a  reprint] 1  v. 

[In  the  above  numbering  32  became  blank  by  the 


APPENDIX 

erasing  of  "Sixty  Maps,"  to  which  that  number  was 
prefixed,  —  so  that  my  numbers  differ  from  Thoreau's. 
The  old  handwriting  ceases  with  "Giinderode,"  but 
the  numbering  rims  on  in  pencil  to  Miss  Martineau's 
book,  No.  39.  I  carry  it  one  farther.  Thoreau  met 
Harriet  Martineau  when  she  visited  Emerson  in  Con 
cord.  Miss  P.'s  "^Esthetic  Papers"  contained  Tho 
reau's  "Resistance  to  Civil  Government,"  —  his  first 
account  of  his  night  in  the  old  Concord  jail.  When  his 
mother  heard  of  his  arrest,  she  hastened  to  the  jail, 
then  to  the  Thoreau  house  in  the  Square,  at  which 
Misses  Jane  and  Maria  Thoreau  then  lived,  and  one  of 
the  latter,  putting  a  shawl  over  her  head,  went  to  the 
jailer's  door,  and  paid  the  tax  and  fees  to  Ellen  Staples; 
her  father  the  jailer  being  absent.  So  says  Miss  Jane 
Hosmer.] 
Emerson's  Nature,  Addresses  and  Lectures  [1849] ....  1  v. 

Emerson's  Representative  Men  [1850] 1  v. 

Emerson's  Essays,  1st.  Series  [1841] 1  v. 

Carlyle's  Past  and  Present 1  v. 

Hitchcock's  Geology  of  Mass 1  v. 

American  Almanack.   1849 1  v. 

Appleton's  Railroad  and  Steamboat  Companion 1  v. 

Transactions  of  Agricultural  Soc.  Mass.  1847 1  v. 

Dial  [1840-41,  42,  43,  44] 4  v. 

Scarlet  Letter  [cancelled;  because  given  away?] 1  v. 

Builder's  Companion 1  v. 

Reports  on  Herb.  Plants  &  on  Quad[rupeds]  of  Mass. .     1  v. 
Ultima  Thule.   [T.  Cholmondeley's  book  on  New  Zea 
land.]  , 1  v. 

Oneota  [a  serial] 5  nos. 

N.Y.  State  Cabinet  of  Nat.  History 1  v. 

Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey 1  v. 

Documents  Relating  to  N.E.  Boundary 1  v. 

Report  on  the  Trees  &  Shrubs  of  Mass.   [G.  B.  Emer 
son.] 1  v. 

College  Question /. . .     1  v. 

Gray's  Botany  (Manual)  '47 1  v. 

Wilson's  Am.  Ornithology 1  v. 

White's  Selborne  (Jesse).  Bohn 1  v. 

[513  ] 


APPENDIX 

Bechstein's  Cage  Birds  and  Sweet  Warblers 1  v. 

Lyon's  Journal.  [I  think  Capt.  L.,  afterwards  General.]  1  v. 

Sitgreaves'  Exped.  Zuni  &  Colorado  Rs 1  v. 

Sickness  on  Emigrant  Ships 1  v. 

Exploration  of  Red  River,  Louisiana.  Marcy 1  v. 

Maps  to  do 1  v. 

Exploration  in  Valley  of  the  Amazon,  P.  2 1  v. 

Maps  to  last 1  v. 

Penal  Codes  in  Europe 1  v. 

Compend,  U.S.  Census.   [1860,  I  fancy.] 1  v. 

Japan  (Perry).  [Expedition  of  Commodore  Perry.].  .  .  1  v. 

Patent  Office  Report  (Agriculture),  '53 1  v. 

Patent  Office  Report  (Agriculture),  '54 1  v. 

Vlth  An.  Report,  Regents  of  Smithsonian  Inst 1  v. 

Vllth  An.  Report,  Regents  of  Smithsonian  Inst 1  v. 

IXth  An.  Report,  Regents  of  Smithsonian  Inst 1  v. 

Laman  Blanchard's  Sketches 2  v. 

Dictionary  of  Quotations 1  v. 

Business  Man's  Assistant 1  v. 

Peter  Gott.  [This  was  a  dull  novel  of  Cape  Ann,  by  Dr. 

Reynolds.] 1  v. 

Gray's  Manual  of  Botany,  ed.  '56.  $2.00 1  v. 

Gray's  Text  Book.  .75 1  v. 

Hunter's  Narrative.   $1.75 1  v. 

McCulloh's  Researches  in  America 1  v. 

Carver's  Travels 1  v. 

Insect  Architecture,  Lib.  Ent.  Knowledge 1  v. 

Insect  Transformations,  Lib.  Ent.  Knowledge 1  v. 

Insect  Miscellanies,  Lib.  Ent.  Knowledge 2  v. 

Macgillivray's  Rapacious  Birds 1  v. 

Harlan's  Fauna 1  v. 

Journal  of  a  Naturalist 1  v. 

The  Eggs  of  British  Birds 1  v. 

Quadrupeds  of  N.  America,  Audubon  &c.  Vol.  1st. ...  1  v. 

British  Quadrupeds.  Bell 1  v. 

Harris's  Treatise  on  Insects.    [By  the  College  Libra 
rian.]  1  v. 

[It  was  this  Dr.  Harris  who  said  to  Alcott,  "  If  Emer 
son  had  not  spoiled  him,  Thoreau  would  have  made  a 

good  naturalist."] 

[514  ] 


APPENDIX 

Cours  d'Histoire  Naturelle 1  v. 

Patent  Office  Report  (Agriculture),  '55 1  v. 

McKenney's  Memoirs   &  Travels,  &c.,  &c.    [About 

Indians.] 2  v.  in  1 

Kirby  and  Spence's  Entomology 1  v. 

Life  of  N.  Am.  Insects  (Prov.  ed.) 1  v. 

Fitch's  Noxious  Insects  of  N.Y 1  v. 

Jackson's  2nd  Report  on  Geology  of  Maine 1  v. 

Jackson's  3rd  Report  on  Geology  of  Maine 1  v. 

Jackson's  2nd  Report  on  Public  Lands  of  Maine  &  Mass.     1  v. 

[This  was  Dr.  C.  T.  Jackson,  Mrs.  Emerson's  brother, 
and  the  real  discoverer  of  the  anaesthetic  properties  of 
sulphuric  ether,  utilized  by  Morton.] 

Patent  Office  Report  for  '56 1  v. 

Agriculture  of  Mass.   Flint  on  Grasses 1  v. 

Mineral  Region  of  Lake  Superior.   [Also  in  History  and 

Geography  list.] 1  v. 

Principles  of  Geology,  Agassiz  &  Gould 1  v. 

Buchanan's  Sketches 1  v. 

Incidents  in  White  Mountain  History 1  v. 

Pike's   Expedition.    [Into   Mexico,  —  Gen.    Z.    Pike, 

killed  at  York.] 1  v. 

Emerson's  Essays,  2nd  Series.  [1845.] 1  v. 

Seaman's  Friend 1  v. 

The  Mountain,  1st  part.  [Uncompleted  or  not  found.]     1  v. 

A  Manual  of  Coal  and  its  Topography 1  v. 

The  Life  of  N.  American  Insects  (Harper's  ed.) 1  v. 

Lovell's  Complete  Herball 1  v. 

A  Plea  for  the  Indians.  By  John  Beeson 1  v. 

Zoological  Notes.  London 1  v. 

Corinthian  Lodge,  Concord.    [Annals  of  the  Masonic 

Lodge  in  Concord.] 1  v. 

[Thoreau's  grandfather,  Rev.  Asa  Dunbar,  had  been 
a  Freemason,  and  the  Master  of  a  Lodge  in  Keene, 
New  Hampshire,  where  he  died  in  1787,  just  before 
the  birth  of  his  youngest  child,  Mrs.  Thoreau.  In 
June,  1781,  he  delivered  the  customary  sermon  before 
Trinity  Lodge  of  Lancaster,  Massachusetts,  which  has 
twice  been  printed,  —  the  last  time  in  1896,  by  Judge 
Smith  of  Clinton  in  his  History  of  Old  Trinity  Lodge, 

[  515  ] 


APPENDIX 

Clinton,  Massachusetts.    No  Thoreau,  so  far  as  known, 

was  a  Mason.] 

Travels  in  Peru.  Tschudi 1  v. 

Peruvian  Antiquities 1  v. 

Franchore's  Narrative 1  v. 

Indian  Narratives 1  v. 

Ancient  Monasteries  [in  the  Levant].  Curzon 1  v. 

Rocky  Mountains.  Lewis  &  Clarke 2  v. 

Plinii  Hist[oria  Naturalis].  3  vols.  1593.   [Elder  Pliny.]  3  v. 

Discovery  on  the  N.W.  Coast  of  America 1  v. 

Birds  of  Long  Island 1  v. 

Abbot's  Scripture  Nat.  Hist 1  v. 

Vegetable  Kingdom,  Handbook  of  Plants 1  v. 

British  Ferns 1  v. 

Hist,  of  the  Ojibway  Nation.   [Duplicate?] 1  v. 

Patent  Office  Report  for  '57 1  v. 

Patent  Office  Report  for  '58  (Mechanics) 3  v. 

Echoes  of  Harper's  Ferry.   [By  J.  Redpath,  I860.] 1  v. 

Loudon's  Encyclopedia  of  Plants,  $13.00 1  v. 

Report  on  the  Flowage  of  [Concord  &  Sudbury]  Mea 
dows,  etc.  [1861] 1  v. 

Leaves  from  the  Note-Book  of  a  Naturalist 1  v. 

Arctic  Searching  Expedition 1  v. 

Pat.  O.  Reports,  —  Agriculture,  '58  &  '59,  or  now  from 

'53-59  (inclusive) 7  v. 

"The  Mountain"  by  Jackson,  1860 1  v. 

Harper's  Ferry  Report  [of  Mason's  Senate  Committee, 

1860] 1  v. 

Our  Woodlands  &c.  W.  S.  Coleman 1  v. 

British  Butterflies,  W.  S.  Coleman 1  v. 

Popular  British  Conchology.  Sowerby 1  v. 

Popular  Mineralogy.  [Given  to  Ellen  Emerson.] 1  v. 

Popular  Hist.  Brit.  Lichens.  Lindsay 1  v. 

Popular  Hist.  Brit.  Mosses.  Stark 1  v. 

Popular  Hist,  of  Mollusca.  Roberts 1  v. 

Gould's  Report  on  the  Invertebrate  Animals  of  Massa 
chusetts 1  v. 

Pat.  O.  Report  on  Agriculture,  '51 1  v. 

New  Mexico  and  California  by  Emory,  &c.  &c 1  v. 

Smithsonian  Reports  for  '55  &  '56 2  v. 

f  516  1 


APPENDIX 

Herndon's  Amazon,  Part  1 1  v. 

With  maps  separate 1  v. 

Andrews'  Report  on  the  Colonial  and  Lake  Trade 1  v. 

And  two  copies  of  maps  separate 2  v. 

Foster  and  Whitney's  Report,  1850 1  v. 

London's  Arboretum  et  Fruticetum  (15^  dolls.) 8  v. 

Emerson's  Conduct  of  Life 1  v. 

Colorado  Exploring  Expedition.  [In  Sophia's  hand.] . .  1  v. 

This  closes  the  catalogue  of  395  volumes,  with  two  or 
three  duplicates.  It  had  been  accumulating  for  some  thirty 
years  in  1861,  and  includes  many  of  his  school  and  college 
textbooks,  with  others  that  he  used  as  a  teacher.  A  few  had 
come  down  to  him  from  ancestors;  many  had  been  given 
him,  —  notably  those  sent  over  from  London  in  1855,  from 
T.  Cholmondeley,  —  a  list  of  which  follows,  not  generally 
included  in  the  above  list:  — 


LIST  OF  BOOKS 

(made  up  in  one  parcel)  for  Henry  D.  Thoreau  Esq.  enclosed  by  John 
Chapman  to  Messrs.  Crosby,  Nichols  &  Co.,  Boston,  U.S.A. 

Wilson's  Rig  Veda  Sanhita,  vols.  1  &  2.  8vo;  Translation  of 
Mandukya  Upanishads,  2  v.;  Nala  Damyanta,  by  Milman,  RI. 
8vo;  Vishnu  Purana  by  Wilson,  4to;  Houghton's  Institutes  of 
Menu,  4to;  Colebrooke's  Two  Treatises,  4to,  bds.;  Sankya  Karika, 
4to;  Aphorisms  of  the  Mimasma,  8vo.;  do.  do.  of  the  Nayaya  (4 
books),  8vo;  Lecture  on  the  Vedanta,  8vo;  Bhagavat  Gheeta  & 
translation,  2  vols.  square  8vo;  Wilson's  "Theater  of  the  Hin 
doos,"  2  volumes,  8vo;  Williams's  Translation  of  "Sakoontala" 
or  The  Lost  Ring,  4to,  gilt.  [This  went  to  Mr.  Alcott.] 

Following  the  catalogue  of  the  library  of  Thoreau  was  a 
sheet  mainly  in  his  handwriting,  containing,  shortly  before 
his  death  in  the  spring  of  1861,  his  designation  of  the  friends 
who  were  to  receive  from  his  shelves  books  as  souvenirs,  — 
the  list  sometimes  indicating  what  books.  This  is :  — 

[517] 


APPENDIX 

In  Sophia's  hand  In  Thoreau's  hand 

Mr.  [Edmund]  Hosmer,  Plan  of  his  Farm? 

Mr.  Alcott,  Four  volumes 

Mr.  [Ellery]  Channing,  Froissart's  Chronicle 

Mr.  Sanborn,  Seven  volumes  of  Bunsen 

Judge  Hoar,  [No  books  indicated] 

Elizabeth  Hoar,  [No  books  indicated] 

Edward  Hoar,  Grasses  and  Sedges 

Town  Library,  Mill's  History  of  British  India,  9 

vols.  &  Coast  Survey  Reports 
Natural  History  Society  of  Bos-  Herbarium,  Birds  and  Eggs  & 

ton,  Indian  Relics 

Mrs.  Ripley,  [No  books  named] 

Horace  Mann,  Jr.,  [Nothing  named] 

Edward  Emerson,  Microscope 

Mr.  Blake,  [Nothing  indicated] 

Mr.  Theo.  Brown,  Percy's  Reliques 

Ellen  Emerson,  Mineralogy  [in  Sophia's  hand; 

also  all  the  rest] 

Ricketson,  [No  indication] 

Edith  Emerson,  Conchology 

Aunt  Louisa  Dunbar,  $50 

Initials  and  figures  in  the  lower  margin  show  the  number 
of  volumes  actually  given,  after  Thoreau's  death,  thus :  — 

Mr.  Emerson,  20  vols;  Mr.  Alcott,  4;  Mr.  Sanborn,  7;  Mr. 
Channing,  2;  Mr.  Ricketson,  2;  Ellen  and  Edith,  2;  The  Aunts, 
2;  P.  [unknown],  1. 

A  small  volume,  Index  Rerum,  belonged  in  early  1836  to 
"  D.  H.  Thoreau,  Cambridge,"  as  a  mixture  of  commonplace 
book,  journal,  library  catalogue,  and  special  index  to  some 
manuscript  hard  to  designate.  The  volume  is  wholly  in 
Thoreau's  hand  and  includes  dates  from  March,  1836,  to  late 
in  1860  or  even  in  1861.  It  therefore  shows  the  whole  varia 
tion  of  his  handwriting,  from  the  rather  unformed  and  flour 
ishing  script  of  his  college  days  to  the  rapid  and  almost 

[518  ] 


APPENDIX 

illegible  hand  of  1860.  The  first  pencil  entries  (pencil,  ac 
companying  a  glove-sketch  in  ink)  are  titles  of  early  manu 
script  Essays,  as  — 

Merrimack  and  Muskctaquid 

Sound  and  Silence 

Concord 

Bravery 

Friendship 

Books  and  Style.    Seeing 

Obligation.   Dying.   Devil 

Several  of  these  were  included  in  the  Week,  but  not  as  a 
whole;  this  is  true  of  "Friendship,"  portions  of  which  the 
Bibliophiles  afterwards  printed.  "Bravery"  makes  part 
of  The  Sertice. 

A  pencil  index  to  some  destroyed  journal  runs  to  page  245. 
It  related  to  a  book  that  existed  in  1843,  but  perhaps  was 
used  up  in  writing  the  Week. 


B 


A  LIST  OF  AUTHORS  READ  OR  TO  BE  READ 
BY  H.  D.  THOREAU 


Authors 


(See  page  261) 
Works 


Commentt 


Orpheus. 
Homer. 
Hesiod. 

Argonautica  and  other  poems. 
Iliad,  Odyssey,  etc.  H.  N.  Coleridge. 
Works  &  Days,  Theogony,  Shield  of  Hercules. 

[The  Pseudo-Orpheus.J 
[Not  the  best  texts.) 

Sappho. 

Two   Fragments,  translated  in  Spectator    by 

Phillips. 

Pindar. 

Odes. 

[Someversiom  byH.D.T.j 

JSschylus. 

Seven  Tragedies. 

[Two    translated    by    H. 

D.T.I 

Anacreon. 

Odes. 

[The     ordinary    Pseudo- 

Anacreon.] 

Simonides. 

Fragments,  Inscriptions. 

[Bacchylides   not   discov 

ered  then.] 

Sophocles. 

Seven  Tragedies. 

AH  the  common  ones. 

Euripides. 

Nineteen  Plays. 

Not  all  Tragedies. 

Aristophanes. 

Eleven  Comedies. 

Callimachus. 

Some  Hymns  on  the  gods.  Epigrams. 

One  Elegy. 

Bion. 

Idyllia. 

[Nothing  but  the  common 

Moschus. 
Theocritus. 

Fragments. 
30  Idyllia  and  some  Epigrams. 

remains  of  both.] 

Herodotus. 
Thucydides. 

History  and  Translations. 

[Mostly  in  English.] 

Xenophon. 

Anabasis,  Cyropaedia,  Hellenica. 

Memorabilia  of  Socrates 

and  Apology. 

Plato. 
Aristotle. 
Demosthenes. 

Dialogues  and  Letters. 
Translated. 
The  Orations,  translated. 

[Nearly  all,  I  judge.] 
[Latin,  English,  French.] 

jEschines. 

"          "                « 

Archimedes. 

Passim. 

[In  other  authors  here  and 

there.] 

Latin  Authors 

Plautus. 

20  Comedies. 

Terence. 

The  Extant  Plays. 

Cicero. 

Opera  omnia.  Middleton's  Life. 

[Not    in     good    modern 

editions.] 

Ceesar. 

Commentaries. 

[Gaul,  of   course;    others 

probably.] 

Nepos. 

Lives. 

[Specifying         Miltiades, 
Themistocles,  Aristides, 

Alcibiades,    Epaminon- 

das,    Phocion,    Hanni 

bal,  Cato  Major.] 

Livy. 

History,  25  Books. 

Seneca. 

Treatises  and  Tragedies. 

[No  mention  of  S.  Major.  ] 

Epictetus. 

Enchiridion. 

Josephus. 
Lucretius. 

History  of  Jews  and  Jewish  Antiquities. 
Poem  "  De  Rerum  Natura." 

[English  of  course.] 

Catullus. 

Epigrams. 

[Probably  aH  the  verse.] 

520 


APPENDIX 


Authors 

Works 

Comments 

Ovid. 

Metamorphoses,  Fasti,  6  books  of  12,  Tristia, 

[All  but  the  Amores.] 

Elegies,  etc. 

Virgil. 
Horace. 

Eclogues,  Georg.,  jEneid. 
Odes,  Satires,  Epistles,  Ars  Poet. 

(Probably  the  others.] 

Tibullus. 

Poems. 

[No  mention  of    Proper- 

tius.] 

Persius. 

Satires. 

(Essay  on  P.  in  "Dial."] 

Juvenal. 

Satires. 

Claudian. 

Poems. 

[Old  Man  of  Verona,  etc.] 

Pliny. 

Letters,  etc. 

[The  two  Plinys,  doubt 
less.] 

Tacitus. 

Histories. 

[Also  Annals   and   Agri- 

cola,  doubtless.] 

Boethius. 

Consolations  of  Philosophy. 

Augustine. 

Confessions. 

Lucian. 
Plutarch. 

The  Morals.  Of  the  Lives:  Lycurgus,  Miltiades, 
Themistocles,  Coriolanus,  Aristides,  Pericles, 

[Greek  or  English.] 
[But  doubtless  he  read  all.] 

Cimon,  Alcibiades,    Epaminondas,  Phocion, 

Alexander  (Family  Library),  Catos,  Pompey, 

and  Aratus. 

Confucius. 

[In  Stanley's  Hist,  of 
Philosophy  he  read, 
Thales,  Anaximander 
and  Plato,  JSsopus 
(Fables),  Anaximenes, 
Pythagoras  (Golden 
Verses),  Democritus, 
Anaxagoras,  Socrates 
(Xenophon  and  Plato), 
Diogenes,  Zeno,  Xeno- 
crates,  Aristippus,  The- 
ophrastus.] 

The  authors  and  their  works  are  in  Thoreau's  autograph; 
a  few  of  the  comments  also;  but  most  of  those  are  my 
own.  Several  of  these  Greek  authors  were  first  read  in 
copies  bought  by  Mr.  Alcott  at  London  in  1842,  or  brought 
to  Concord  by  Charles  Lane  from  the  Greaves  Library  at 
Alcott  House  in  England.  Stanley's  History  was  in  Emer 
son's  library,  and  also  the  Confessions  of  Augustine. 


ASA  DUNBAR:  PARSON,  FREEMASON,  AND 
ATTORNEY 

THIS  grandfather  of  Henry  Thoreau  graduated  at  Har 
vard  in  1767,  with  forty-one  classmates,  among  whom  he  was 
eminent  and  a  hero  of  their  rebellion.  His  grandson  grad 
uated  in  1837,  and  so  little  had  the  college  grown  in  the 
seventy  years  between,  that  his  classmates  numbered  but 
forty-six,  among  whom  Thoreau  seems  to  have  had  little 
eminence. 

Hardly  had  Dunbar  completed  his  studies  in  divinity  and 
begun  to  preach  when  there  began  for  him  more  serious 
troubles  than  those  of  the  college  rebellion.  He  had  wooed 
and  won  Mary  Jones,  the  only  daughter  of  Colonel  Elisha 
Jones  of  Weston  (she  had  eleven  brothers  then  living),  and 
they  were  married  at  her  father's  fine  house  in  Weston, 
October  22,  1772,  and  soon  went  to  live  in  his  parish  at 
Salem.  But  the  dispute  of  the  Colonies  with  George  III  was 
growing  warm;  and  Colonel  Jones  (a  man  of  estate,  with 
two  negro  slaves),  who  had  for  ten  years  represented  his 
town  in  the  Provincial  Assembly,  took  sides  with  the  king. 
In  January,  1774,  Colonel  Jones  and  such  of  his  sons  as  re 
mained  in  Weston,  at  a  special  town  meeting  had  been  able 
to  prevent  Weston  from  adopting  Samuel  Adams's  plan  for 
Committees  of  Correspondence  and  a  Continental  Con 
gress;  and  Jones  himself  was  chosen  in  May,  as  before,  to 
represent  the  town  in  the  Assembly  called  in  Boston  by 
General  Gage,  then  Acting  Governor  of  the  Province.  This 
was  his  last  gleam  of  popularity;  in  September  his  patriotic 

[522] 


APPENDIX 

rival,  Bradyll  Smith,  was  chosen  in  his  stead  to  sit  in  the 
Assembly  that  met  in  Salem;  and  late  in  1774  Colonel  Jones 
took  up  his  abode  in  Boston,  under  the  protection  of  the 
British  troops.  He  was  there  in  January,  1775,  and  in  July 
was  appointed,  said  the  patriotic  Boston  Gazette,  "  overseer 
of  Gage's  haymakers  upon  Bunker  Hill,"  a  few  weeks  after 
the  battle.  That  famous  date  (June  17,  1775)  was  well 
marked  in  the  annals  of  the  Jones  family.1  Mrs.  Dunbar 
had  come  back  from  Salem  to  be  housekeeper  in  the  mansion 
at  Weston,  and  on  that  day  carried  food  (a  basket  of  cher 
ries,  her  daughter,  Mrs.  Thoreau,  told  me)  to  her  brother, 
'Dr.  Jones,  in  the  blockhouse  jail  at  Concord;  while  her  hus 
band,  setting  out  for  Salem  with  another  horse  from  Weston, 
found  the  country  so  disturbed  by  the  battle  going  on  in 
Charlestown  that  he  had  to  return  to  Weston. 

The  style  of  Dunbar  may  be  seen  in  the  apology  made  by 
him  at  Weston,  September  8,  1775,  which  was  printed  in 
the  Gazette  of  Cambridge  at  the  time:  — 

Having  been  acquainted  by  the  gentlemen  the  Committee  of 
Correspondence  in  Weston  with  some  uneasiness  arising  in  the 
minds  of  people,  from  the  conduct  of  myself  and  family  upon  Fast 
Day,  the  20th  of  last  July;  and  having  a  desire  to  live  in  good 
fellowship  with  every  friend  to  American  liberty,  I  beg  leave 
publicly  to  declare, 

1  The  same  Gazette,  of  August  7,  has  this  to  say  of  a  younger  Tory,  then 
in  Boston;  "Dummer  Rogers,  Esq.,  late  attorney  at  Littleton  [Mass.],  is 
appointed  superintendent  of  Gage's  grog-shops  at  Charlestown."  This 
gentleman  fled  to  England,  like  Governor  Hutchinson,  Jofcn  Wentworth. 
Judge  Curwen,  and  others;  and  late  in  the  eighteenth  century  was  of  some 
service  to  the  boy  Byron,  in  his  fragmentary  education,  and  was  affection 
ately  remembered  by  the  poet  in  after  years.  Jonas  Jones,  youngest 
brother  of  Mrs.  Dunbar,  being  an  officer  in  the  British  army,  lived  and 
died  in  England  after  the  Revolution.  Stephen,  another  brother,  visited 
England  in  the  interest  of  the  family  in  1778,  and  returned  as  cornet  in 
Colonel  Thompson's  (Count  Rumford's)  King's  American  Dragoons,  and 
fought  against  Marion  in  Carolina. 

[523  ] 


APPENDIX 

That  the  part  I  bore  in  those  transactions  that  gave  offence  was 
dictated  solely  by  the  principles  of  religion  and  humanity,  with 
no  design  of  displeasing  any  one;  and  that  I  am  sorry  that  it  was 
in  the  eyes  of  one  of  my  fellow-countrymen  attended  with  any 
disgusting  circumstances.  As  it  has  been  \suspected  that  I  despised 
the  day,  and  the  Authority  that  appointed  it,  I  must,  in  justice 
to  myself,  and  from  the  love  of  truth  affirm,  that  I  very  highly 
respect  and  revere  that  authority;  and  were  it  not  from  the 
appearance  of  boasting,  could  add  that  I  believe  no  person  ob 
served  it  with  greater  sincerity  than 

ASA  DUNBAE 


It  must  indeed  have  been  a  time  of  fasting,  humiliation, 
and  prayer  to  a  pious  minister  at  that  time.  Separated  from 
his  parishioners,  who  seem  to  have  been  fond  of  him,  and 
from  the  family  of  his  wife  (who  were  in  prison  or  in  block 
ade,  or  dispersed  about  the  land),  under  suspicion  of  trea 
son,  it  was  a  period  of  anxiety  and  of  doubt  what  a  friend  of 
American  liberty  ought  to  do  and  say.  He  seems  in  1776  to 
have  continued  to  preach  at  Salem,  but  to  have  fallen  into 
ill  health;  and  in  1779  to  have  withdrawn  into  Worcester 
county,  and  studied  law  with  Joshua  Atherton,  who  like 
himself  was  under  suspicion  of  Toryism,  but  was  afterwards 
Attorney-General  of  New  Hampshire.  Mr.  Dunbar  with 
drew  to  Keene  in  that  state,  not  far  from  his  brother-in-law 
Daniel  Jones,  of  Hinsdale,  and  practised  law  and  Freema 
sonry  there  for  years  with  general  respect,  but  without  ac 
quiring  much  money.  In  the  interval  between  Salem  and 
Keene  he  delivered  at  Lancaster  an  address  on  Masonry, 
which  has  been  reprinted  of  late  years  by  the  members  of 
the  Lodge  before  which  it  was  given,  and  is  probably  the 
longest  specimen  of  his  style  that  now  exists  in  print. 

This  Concord  prison,  in  which  in  1777  Sir  Archibald 
Campbell  was  confined,  though  a  prisoner  of  war,  colonel 
of  a  regiment,  and  member  of  Parliament,  was  not  a  pleas- 

[524] 


APPENDIX 

ant  residence,  and  Sir  Archibald  complained  much  about  it 
to  General  Washington,  who  finally  got  him  released,  and 
exchanged  for  Colonel  Ethan  Allen,  captured  by  the  British 
in  Canada.  It  was  sketched  by  Sir  Archibald's  clerk,  Wilson, 
and  his  drawing  of  it  has  long  hung  in  the  Concord  Public 
Library.  It  stood  on  the  main  street  in  the  midst  of  the  vil 
lage,  near  the  oldest  cemetery,  and  nearly  opposite  the 
present  Library.  The  family  tradition  on  these  imprison 
ments,  written  down  by  Henry  Thoreau  in  one  of  the 
Journals  before  1846,  since  destroyed,  was  in  some  points 
incorrect. 

The  fine  old  house  of  Colonel  Jones,  where  Rev.  Asa  Dun- 
bar  much  resided  in  1775,  is  still  standing  in  good  condition 
at  Weston,  but  removed  from  the  estate  on  which  it  stood  to 
be  the  residence  of  Mr.  Charles  Fiske,  the  nephew  of  Mrs. 
Ripley  of  the  Old  Manse.  The  estate  was  confiscated  in  the 
Revolution,  and  sold  by  Massachusetts  in  1788.  It  is  now 
a  part  of  the  estate  of  the  late  General  Charles  Paine,  a 
veteran  of  the  Civil  War,  who  sold  the  house  to  Mr.  Fiske. 
In  a  meadow  of  this  estate,  some  twenty  years  ago,  Mr. 
Alfred  Hosmer,  of  Concord,  found  the  English  cuckoo-plant, 
often  mentioned  by  Shakespeare,  growing  wild,  —  appar 
ently  brought  over  for  the  Jones  garden,  but  escaped,  and 
growing  wild,  as  in  England.  Mr.  Hosmer  brought  it  to 
Concord,  where  it  now  grows  wild  in  several  places. 

In  this  mansion  of  the  Joneses,  Rev.  A.  Dunbar  wrote  and 
issued  his  explanation  of  his  clerical  conduct,  which  the 
Weston  Committee  (B.  Pierce,  Moderator)  "  receive  as  sat 
isfactory,  and  think  it  ought  to  release  him  from  any  un 
favorable  suspicions  that  have  arisen  to  his  disadvantage." 


D 

THE  BOSTON  HOME  OF  THE  THOREAUS 
IN  PRINCE  STREET 

THIS  was  a  house  in  Prince  Street  built  and  inhabited  be 
fore  1738;  for  in  that  year  (January  20)  it  was  bought  by 
David  Orrok,  mariner,  of  Nathaniel  and  Susanna  Loring, 
for  £118.  It  became  the  property  of  Sarah  Orrok,  the  daugh 
ter  of  David  and  Sarah  (Tillet)  Orrok:  this  Sarah  Orrok 
married  a  Scotch  gentleman  named  Burns,  probably  about 
1750.  As  she  had  been  bred  a  Quaker,  her  granddaughter 
Maria  Thoreau  wrote  me  in  1878,  "  To  gain  the  consent  of 
her  Quaker  parents,  Mr.  Burns,  my  grandfather,  was 
obliged  to  doff  his  rich  apparel  of  gems  and  ruffles,  and  con 
form  to  the  more  simple  garb  of  his  Quaker  bride."  The 
house  became  the  inheritance  of  Jane  Burns,  his  daughter, 
whom  John  Thoreau,  a  mariner,  married  in  1781,  when  she 
was  joint  heir  with  her  aunts,  Ann  and  Hannah  Orrok, 
whose  rights  were  bought  in  1795  by  Jane's  husband,  — 
who  at  marriage  was,  like  his  wife,  twenty-seven  years  old. 
She  died  in  1795,  in  this  house,  which  then  was  the  sole 
property  of  her  husband  and  children,  and  at  his  death  in 
1801,  it  became  the  sole  property  of  the  eight  children.  In 
1808,  when  John  Thoreau,  the  eldest  son,  came  of  age,  he 
mortgaged  his  eighth  part  to  his  stepmother  Thoreau,  for 
one  thousand  dollars,  —  showing  that  it  was  then  valued  at 
about  ten  thousand  dollars.  The  mortgage  was  not  re 
corded  till  1811,  when  the  father  of  Henry  Thoreau  was  in 
financial  difficulties;  nor  was  it  paid  until  about  the  date  of 
Henry's  birth,  in  the  summer  of  1817. 

[526  1 


APPENDIX 

The  house  then  became  the  property  of  the  other  heirs, 
and,  David  and  Sarah  being  dead,  it  was  mortgaged  by 
Elizabeth,  Maria,  and  Jane  to  Isaac  Dupee,  in  1825;  and 
again,  in  1832,  to  the  Fireman's  Insurance  Company,  each 
time  for  one  thousand  dollars.  This  mortgage  was  not  re 
leased  till  November  27,  1868,  six  years  after  the  death  of 
Henry.  At  that  time  the  house  was  at  least  one  hundred  and 
thirty  years  old,  and  still  a  valuable  piece  of  property, 
though  perhaps  worth  less  than  it  had  been  when  Henry 
entered  college  in  1833. 


E 

THE  JONES  FAMILY  AND  THEIR  PROPERTY 

ONE  of  the  fourteen  sons  of  Colonel  Elisha  Jones,  of  Wes- 
ton,  grandfather  of  Cynthia  Dunbar,  the  mother  of  Henry 
Thoreau,  was  Isaac  Jones,  of  Adams,  in  western  Massachu 
setts,  near  Pittsfield,  where  another  son  of  Colonel  Jones 
had  an  estate  which  was  confiscated.  Isaac  was  not  one  of 
the  eight  banished  sons;  but  in  1823  he  wrote  the  following 
account  of  the  property  and  activities  of  his  father  and 
brothers,  copying  from  Josiah.  The  first  brother  quoted  in 
this  document  was  the  one  first  imprisoned  in  the  Concord 
jail  for  aiding  the  enemy  in  Boston,  Josiah  Jones,  who  was 
bred  a  physician,  but  in  Nova  Scotia  practised  law,  after 
his  banishment.  Being  under  oath,  he  testified  as  follows :  — 

He  and  his  brothers  Claim  as  Heirs  to  his  Father  who  died  in 
1776.  He  died  without  a  Will,  leaving  eleven  Children.  Nathan, 
the  eldest  Son,  now  living  in  Maine.  Elisha,  who  died  in  Nova 
Scotia,  leaving  a  Widow  and  children.  Israel  now  living  in  Massa 
chusetts.  Daniel  who  lived  in  New  Hampshire,  now  dead,  having 
left  a  Widow  and  children.  Elias  in  Massachusetts.  Claimant 
Josiah  in  Nova  Scotia.  Ephraim  now  in  Canada,  who  served  in 
the  British  Army  the  whole  War.  Josiah  who  now  appears  and 
lives  at  Sisseboo.  Simeon  who  lives  in  New  Brunswick.  Stephen 
who  lives  at  Sisseboo.  Jonas  who  lives  in  England.  He  left  also 
one  daughter  married  to  Asa  Dunbar  who  lives  in  New  Hampshire. 

Claimant  says  his  Mother  also  is  living  and  now  lives  in  Massa 
chusetts.  His  Father  had  a  considerable  landed  Estate  in  Massa 
chusetts.  By  his  dying  without  a  Will  his  Estate  goes  amongst 
all  his  children,  two  shares  to  the  eldest  son.  His  Mother  has  no 
Jointure,  but  is  entitled  to  her  Dower, 

Says  his  Father  Elisha  Jones  was  a  native  of  America.  He  had 

[538] 


APPENDIX 

always  been  a  friend  to  British  Government.  Opposed  all  their 
Town  meetings.  Declared  his  sentiments  openly.  In  1775  he  was 
Colonel  of  Militia  and  raised  the  Militia  in  order  to  oppose  the 
violent  measures  of  the  Insurgents.  He  was  obliged  to  keep  a 
guard  of  Militia  round  his  own  House  for  fear  of  being  attacked. 
His  Life  was  in  Danger  which  was  the  Reason  that  he  kept  this 
Guard.  Before  Hostilities  began,  the  Mobs  had  come  so  often 
against  him  that  he  was  obliged  to  leave  home,  and  went  to  Bos 
ton  in  the  Fall  of  1774.  Continued  there  to  declare  the  same  senti 
ments.  Three  of  his  sons  were  with  him  in  Boston,  and  after  the 
Battle  of  Lexington  (they)  served  in  the  Militia  under  General 
Ruggles  —  Josiah  and  Stephen,  two  of  the  Claimants  and  Elisha 
who  is  dead. 

His  Father  continued  hi  the  same  Loyal  Principles  till  his  Death. 
General  Gage  always  consulted  him  and  placed  the  greatest  con 
fidence  in  him.  He  died  in  1776. 

The  Claimant,  Josiah,  lived  in  New  Hampshire  when  Troubles 
began.  Always  took  the  part  of  the  Government.  Left  home  on  19 
April,  1775.  Was  obliged  to  go,  as  he  was  then  so  persecuted  by 
Mobs,  the  whole  Family  having  made  themselves  obnoxious  by 
their  Loyalty.  Went  to  his  Father  at  Boston.  Continued  under 
Protection  of  British  Arms.  Was  sent  to  Nova  Scotia  by  Gen 
eral  Gage  to  procure  Forage  for  the  Army.  In  coming  to  this 
Province  was  taken  Prisoner  but  made  his  escape,  and  in  1776 
served  in  the  Militia  under  General  Ruggles.  They  consisted  of 
Loyalists  who  were  embodied  at  Boston.  Served  till  Boston  was 
evacuated.  Went  with  the  Army  to  Halifax,  then  to  New  York, 
having  an  employment  hi  the  Secretary's  office  under  Captain 
Mackenzie.  Continued  in  this  employment  till  the  year  follow 
ing  then  was  employed  hi  the  office  of  the  Inspector  of  Provisions, 
Francis  Rush  Clarke.  Went  with  the  Army  to  Philadelphia; 
afterwards  employed  in  the  Commissary's  Line  at  New  York. 
Was  then  in  Governor  Wentworth's  Volunteers  and  served  till 
the  Fall  1782,  then  came  to  this  Province.  \. 

The  above  examination  was  held  by  a  Parliamentary 
Commission  in  Canada  in  1786,  preliminary  to  a  grant  of 
British  money  to  the  Jones  survivors,  for  their  losses  in  the 
Revolution  by  confiscation,  and  for  services  in  the  war. 
Josiah  Jones  (whose  escape  was  from  the  Concord  jail) 

[529  | 


APPENDIX 

went  on  before  the  Commission  to  give  a  statement  of  his 
father's  property,  and  that  of  some  of  the  sons.  Colonel 
Jones  owned  two  thousand  acres  hi  the  town  of  Adams, 
Massachusetts;  six  hundred  and  seventy-four  acres  in  Pitts- 
field  and  Washington,  Massachusetts;  five  thousand  two 
hundred  acres  in  Partridgefield;  and  smaller  estates  in  the 
towns  nearer  Boston.  His  homestead  estate  in  Weston, 
inherited  from  his  father,  was  seventy-five  acres,  "all  the 
land  clear  and  improved,  an  elegant  mansion  house,  and 
various  outbuildings,"  the  whole  valued  at  one  thousand 
pounds  sterling.  There  were  also  three  outlying  farms,  — 
Allen's  Farm,  of  seventy  acres  hi  Weston,  valued  at  three 
hundred  and  fifty  pounds  sterling;  Jericho  Farm,  of  forty- 
four  acres,  valued  at  one  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  "  chiefly 
mowing  land,  fifteen  miles  from  Boston";  and  Nonsuch 
Farm,  eighty-five  acres,  chiefly  hi  Weston,  Natick,  and 
Sudbury. 

This  home  estate  consisted  then  of  some  two  hundred 
acres,  and  was  valued  at  about  nineteen  hundred  pounds. 
In  Princeton,  near  Mount  Wachusett,  was  a  farm  of  sixty 
acres,  bought  for  Isaac,  one  of  the  colonel's  sons,  and  in 
1786  intended  for  Josiah,  who  had  unfortunately  been  ban 
ished.  He  said  that  in  1786  his  mother  had  made  applica 
tion  for  her  thirds,  but  had  received  nothing;  his  brothers 
who  were  not  banished  (Nathan,  Israel,  Daniel,  and  Isaac) 
"have  got  nothing  except  what  was  given  them  by  their 
father  "  before  his  death  in  January,  1776.  They  were  in 
hopes  of  recovering  some  lands  not  included  hi  the  confisca 
tions. 

Here,  then,  were  landed  properties  amounting  in  the 
aggregate  to  more  than  eight  thousand  two  hundred  acres, 
and  probably  worth,  at  the  colonel's  death,  at  least  twelve 
thousand  dollars,  —  or  half  as  much  as  John  Thoreau's 
estate  was  at  his  death  in  1801,  —  yet  mainly  lost  to  the 

f  530  1 


APPENDIX 

heirs  of  Mrs.  Dunbar,  who,  when  left  a  second  time  a  widow, 
by  the  death  of  Captain  Minot,  had  little  but  her  widow's 
thirds  of  the  Minot  estate  to  depend  upon.  Her  son-in-law, 
the  second  John  Thoreau,  was  farming  those  lands  in  Con 
cord  when  his  famous  son  was  born. 

Colonel  Jones  had  a  son  Elisha,  named  for  him,  who  re 
ceived  from  his  father  a  farm  of  one  hundred  and  sixty-five 
acres  in  the  present  town  of  Adams,  but  was  banished  and 
lost  it  by  confiscation.  He  died  in  Nova  Scotia  in  January, 
1783,  leaving  seven  children,  of  whom  the  eldest  was  at  St. 
John  in  1786,  being  then  twenty-one  years  old. 

The  Royal  Commission  reported  hi  that  year  that  the 
Joneses  were  a  very  meritorious  family,  and  the  report  had 
been  hastened  in  order  to  serve  them  as  much  as  possible. 
Josiah,  Simeon,  Stephen,  and  the  widow  of  Elisha  received 
one  hundred  pounds  each,  and  Stephen  an  extra  hundred 
for  expenses.  He  had  joined  the  British  army  on  the  day  of 
the  Concord  Fight,  —  meeting  Earl  Percy  as  he  came  to  the 
aid  of  Colonel  Smith,  retreating  from  Concord.  Stephen 
also  carried  to  General  Gage  the  first  certain  news  of  the 
numbers  collecting,  at  Concord  and  elsewhere,  to  fight  the 
British;  whereupon  Gage  ordered  another  brigade  to  support 
Earl  Percy.  Evidently  the  Jones  family  did  all  they  could 
in  aid  of  King  George. 


LETTER  OF  Z.  R.  BROCKWAY 

ELMIRA,  N.Y.,  January  28,  1917. 

RUMMAGING  amongst  my  preserves,  I  find  your  letter  of 
September  7,  1901,  with  its  interesting  enclosure,  —  your 
type-written  copy  of  a  Forensic  by  Henry  Thoreau,  at 
Harvard  College,  September  2,  1835,  entitled  "  The  Com 
parative  Moral  Policy  of  Severe  and  Mild  Punishments." 

Thoreau's  philosophic  insight,  —  college  student  of 
eighteen  as  he  was,  —  as  depicted  in  the  first  sentence  and 
paragraph  of  the  "  Forensic,"  seems  to  me  now  unusual  and 
remarkable,  viz:  — 

"  The  end  of  all  punishment  is  the  welfare  of  the  state,  the 
good  of  the  community  at  large;  not  the  suffering  of  the  in 
dividual.  It  matters  not  to  the  lawgiver  what  a  man  de 
serves,  etc." 

This  shows  that  as  early  as  1835  this  youth  had  emerged 
from  the  superstitious  stage  of  civilization;  from  the  ortho 
dox  theologic  concept;  though  environed  within  the  ortho 
dox,  New  England  intellectual  atmosphere.  Indeed,  it  sug 
gests  that,  youth  as  he  was,  he  had  extricated  himself  from 
the  next  stage,  the  metaphysical  one,  with  its  fascinating 
maze  of  perplexities;  whether  wittingly  or  unwittingly,  he 
was  firmly  planted  within  the  advanced  rationality  of  the 
Practical,  as  the  true  realm  of  governmental  moral  policy. 

It  has  lately  seemed  to  me  that  a  failure  to  recognize  the 
supreme  demand  of  the  public  welfare  over  momentary  sen 
timentality  in  the  treatment  of  convicted  offenders  lies  at  the 
root  of  the  common  faultiness  in  that  respect.  Not  to  men- 

[5321 


APPENDIX 

tion  other  considerations,  we  are,  by  our  foolish  philanthropy 
towards  the  individual,  breaking  down  a  salutary  public 
opinion  that  criminal  behavior  is  disreputable  and  damaging 
to  the  offender. 

The  substitution,  both  in  theory  and  practice,  of  treatment 
for  punishment  as  the  term  to  designate  the  consequence 
of  crimes,  is  now  much  prevented  by  a  reaction  from  the 
false  orthodox  conception  of  abstract  universality,  and  the 
superficial  infused  notion  of  free  will  and  responsibility,  and 
certain  punishments  thus  demanded.  The  demand  of  the 
public  welfare  to  govern  the  kind  and  the  degree  of  restraint 
and  compulsion  must  replace  the  suggestions  and  systems 
that  root  in  erroneous  theological  dogmas. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Adams,  John  Quincy,  an  Anti- 
Mason,  50. 

Alcott,  A.  Bronson,  152,  153,  199; 
his  verse  on  Thoreau,  283;  299- 
301,  313,  460.  461,  495. 

Alcott,  Louisa  M.,  199. 

Allingham,  William,  poem  quoted, 
477,  478. 

Anderson,  Dr.  Charles  L.,  400,  402. 

Assabet  River,  a  fluvial  walk  in  the, 
435-40. 

Atlantic  Monthly,  318. 

Authors,  foreign  and  native,  161, 
162. 

Azalea,  pink,  427-31. 

Battle  Monument,  163. 
Beecher,  Henry  Ward,  384,  385. 
Bigelow,  Dr.  Henry,  58. 
Billings,  Elizabeth  Thoreau  (aunt  of 

Henry  Thoreau),  5. 
Bixby,  W.  K.,  338,  369. 
Blake,  Harrison  G.  O..  302,  304-06, 

383,  390,  391. 
Books  in  Thoreau's  library,  505-17; 

a  list  of  books  left  to  friends,  518; 

Thoreau's  reading  list,  520,  521. 
Boston  Commonwealth,  170. 
Boston  home  of  the  Thoreaus,  526, 

527. 

Boston  Miscellany,  318. 
Bravery,  observations  on,  245,  246, 

254,  255. 
Brockway,  Z.  R.,  79;  letter  from, 

532,  533. 

Brown,  Rev.  Addison,  375-77. 
Brown,  Miss  Frances,  376-78. 


Brown,  John,  285-89,  383.  478-81. 

484,  486,  487. 
Brownson.  Orestes,  141, 152. 

Cabot,  George.  8. 

Capital  punishment,  80. 

Gary,  Alice,  384. 

Channing,  William  Ellery,  235,  321, 
329, 330, 358-60, 389, 390, 432, 488- 
90;  quotation  from  "The  Wan 
derer,"  170;  quotations  from  his 
Journals  and  his  Life  of  Thoreau, 
41,  42,  52,  53,  120,  149,  171,  194, 
207,  220-22,  284,  285,  325-28, 
340-45,  353,  484,  491,  492;  his 
poem  "Near  Home,"  347,  348. 

Character  and  reputation,  246-48. 

Chelmsford,  33,  36. 

Cholmondeley,  Mary,  311. 

Cholmondeley,  Thomas.  301-13, 
337. 

Civil  War,  400,  401. 

Civilization,  the  influence  of  art, 
180. 

Columbus,  cited  as  an  example,  69. 

Concord  Academy,  42. 

Concord  jail,  13,  82,  83. 

Concord  Lyceum.  47.  48,  78,  316, 
317,  470. 

Concord  Village,  34;  recollections 
told  to  Thoreau  by  Miss  Anna 
Jones,  37,  38. 

Contrast,  Thoreau's  use  of,  258. 

Conway,  Moncure  D.,  482,  483. 

Cranch,  Christopher  P.,  158. 

Criticism,  a  contemptible  kind  of, 
104. 


537 


INDEX 


Dante,  110. 

Davy  Club,  57. 

Democratic  Review,  318. 

Dial,  The,  contributions  to,  223, 242; 

318. 
Disconnection  in  Thoreau's  writing, 

63. 

D'Israeli,  observation  on  Dante,  110. 
Dorr,  Captain,  374,  375. 
Dunbar,  Rev.  Asa  (grandfather  of 

Thoreau),  6-8,  9,  16-20,  522-25. 
Dunbar,  Charles  (uncle  of  Thoreau), 

448-50. 

Dunbar,  Cynthia  (mother  of  Tho 
reau),  5,  20,  32,  320. 
Dunbar,  Louisa  (aunt  of  Thoreau), 

converted  by  Daniel  Webster,  46; 

194,  442. 
Dunbar,  Mary  Jones  (grandmother 

of  Thoreau),  5, 6, 11, 12, 20,  24, 25; 

married  Jonas  Minot,  23. 
Dunbars,  of  Bridgewater,  25. 
Duty,  observations  on,  151. 

Education,  the  end  of  life,  180;  com 
pared  with  learning,  182. 

Elizabethan  writers,  criticism  of, 
273-75. 

Emerson,  Miss  Mary,  361,  362. 

Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  1,  40, 47, 58, 
141,  149,  153,  163,  199,  236-40, 
295,  296,  298-300,  324,  334,  337, 
341,  342,  357,  487,  490,  494;  first 
intimacy  with  Thoreau,  128,  129; 
opinion  of  Thoreau,  239;  com 
pared  with  Thoreau,  495,  496;  his 
words  at  Thoreau's  funeral,  502. 

Fields,  James  T.,  372. 
Fire  in  the  woods/417-22. 
Flannery,  Michael,  434,  435. 
Francis  I  and  Charles  V,  compared 

by  Thoreau,  72,  73. 
French  character,  107. 
French  literature,  131. 


Friendship,  339,  454-58. 
Frost,  Rev.  Barzillai,  361. 
Fuller,  Margaret,  199,  223,  279,  280, 
357. 

Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  152,  153, 

466. 

Genius,  344,  345. 
German  literature,  little  known  hi 

New  England,  114. 
Goldsmith,  Oliver,  109,  110. 
Goodwin,  John,  450-53. 
Greece,  257. 

Greeley,  Horace,  240,  317,  367. 
Gunning,  40. 

Harris,  Miss  Laura,  475. 

Harvard  College,  rebellion  at,  6-8. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  235,  236, 
298,  299;  his  description  of  Tho 
reau,  236-38. 

Hill,  Edwin  B.,  61,  note. 

Hoar,  Judge  Ebenezer  Rockwood, 
337. 

Hoar,  Edward,  346,  370,  371,  386, 
416,  422. 

Hoar,  George  F.,  242. 

Hoar,  Samuel,  472. 

Hosmer,  Alfred  W.,  61,  note;  525. 

Hubbard,  Ebby,  434,  435. 

Kurd,  Dr.  Isaac,  36,  446. 

Hurd,  Joseph,  guardian  of  John 
Thoreau's  children,  30-32. 

Indians,  Thoreau's  knowledge  of, 
205,  206,  412,  413. 

James,  Henry,  Sr.,  367,  368. 

Jarvis,  Dr.  Edward,  200. 

Jones,  Colonel  Elisha  (great-grand 
father  of  Thoreau),  5,  6,  9,  14;  old 
mansion  at  Weston,  15,  note;  22, 
522,  523. 

Jones,  Dr.  Josiah  (great-uncle  of 
Thoreau),  a  Tory,  9-12, 14,  21,  22. 


538 


INDEX 


Jones,  Stephen  and  Simeon  (great 
uncles  of  Thoreau),  Tories,  12. 13, 
14,  21,  22. 

Jones  family,  the,  528-31. 

Knowledge,  raises  one  man  above 
another,  87. 

Languages,  Thoreau's  acquaintance 

with,  260,  261. 
Le  Galais,  Marie  (great-grandmother 

of  Thoreau),  3. 
Liberator,  The,  286. 
Liberty  and  equal  rights,  76,  77. 
Lincoln,  Abraham,  485-87. 
Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  337. 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  337,  372,  493. 

Malloy,  Charles,  239,  337. 

Man,  the  slave  of  a  name,  156;  in 
social  relations,  166,  167;  to  be 
himself  must  be  free,  191;  the 
brave  man  a  perfect  sphere,  199. 

Mann,  Horace,  Jr.,  369,  394. 

Manse,  Old,  163. 

Masonry  and  the  Anti-Masons,  48, 49. 

Masons  in  Concord,  49,  50. 

Melvin,  George,  426-33,  464,  465. 

Meriam,  Francis  Jackson,  290-94, 
463,  464. 

Milton,  Thoreau's  interest  in,  91, 
note;  92. 

Mince  pies,  62. 

Minot,  George,  40,  423-26. 

Minot,  Captain  Jonas,  20,  23. 

Money,  76. 

Monroe,  William,  211,  212. 

Monroe,  Mrs.  William,  442. 

Morton,  Edwin,  303-04,  310,  S12. 

Mount  Monadnoc,  222. 

Music,  231-33. 

Nature,  effect  on  man,  181,  256. 
Necessity,  another  name  for  inflexi 
bility  of  good,  177,  178. 


Negative  virtue,  81. 

New  England,  worship  of  utility, 
131,  132;  literature  131-34;  re 
spect  for  what  is  foreign,  133, 134. 

Orrok,  David,  441,  526. 
Orrok,  Hannah,  444. 
Orrok.  Sarah,  441. 

Patriot,  a  true,  77,  78. 

Peabody,  A.  G.,  57. 

Peace  and  non-resistance,  253. 

Persians,  127. 

Peters,  Samuel  Andrew,  373,  374. 

Phillips,  Wendell,  470-73. 

Philosophers,  138-39,  147,  348,  349. 

Plumbago  industry,  325. 

Plutarch,  study  of,  257. 

Poetry,  a  recreation,  104. 

Polis,  Joe,  383,  386. 

Poverty  in  Concord,  42,  43. 

Preachers,  observations  on,  159, 160, 

341. 

Prejudice,  68. 

Press,  observations  on  the,  160,  161. 
Prussian  standard,  the,  283. 
Putnam's  Monthly,  318. 

Quincy,  Josiah,  58. 

Reason  and  feelings  contrasted,  157. 
Recruit,  the  qualities  of  the,  245- 

48. 

Religion,  150,  341. 
Rice,  Charles  Wyatt,  letters  from 

Thoreau  to,  59,  60,  62,  63. 
Richardson,  James,  188. 
Ricketson,   Daniel,   304,   305.   386, 

415,  447. 

Riordan,  Johnny,  362. 
Ripley,  Dr.  Ezra,  31,  33,  39.  47,  49; 

described  in  verse,  162. 
Robinson,  William,  213. 
Rogers,  N.  P.,  228. 
Russell,  Elias  Harlow,  369. 


[  539  ] 


INDEX 


Sailing  with  and  against  the  stream, 

193. 

St.  John,  Hector,  332,  333. 
Salt,  Henry  S.,  365. 
Sanborn,  F.  B.,  290-94,  463. 
Satan,    Moloch,    Belial,    Mammon, 

and  Beelzebub,  compared  in  essay 

on  "Milton's  Poesy,"  93-97. 
Scholars,  not  privileged  to  complain, 

240. 
Science,  Thoreau's  aversion  to,  340, 

341. 

Sentiment,  alone  immortal,  62. 
"Service,  The,"  243-48,  252-55,  336. 
Sewall,  Miss  Ellen,  202,  211,  229, 

350-52,  467. 
Shakespeare,  110-13. 
Skating,  298,  299. 
Slavery,  466-84. 

Smith,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Oakes,  361. 
.Solitude,  86,  87. 
Spanish  literature,  131. 
Speech  the  beginning  of  silence,  266. 
Spring,  Marcus,  357,  380-82. 
Strong,  Moses,  275-77. 
Swett,  Rev.  William,  169,  note. 

Tahattawan,  186. 

Tasso,  113. 

Teaching,  motives  in,  196,  197. 

Terror,  and  the  Sublime,  142. 

Thoreau,  Elizabeth  Orrok  (aunt  of 
Henry),  442,  443. 

Thoreau,  Helen,  191,  192,  197,  474. 

Thoreau,  Henry  David,  birth,  2;  pa 
ternal  ancestry,  2-5,  441-47;  ma 
ternal  ancestry,  5-28,  447-50; 
inherited  traits,  27,  28;  name,  35; 
begins  school  in  Boston,  35,  39; 
incidents  of  childhood,  41,  42; 
member  of  Concord  Lyceum,  47, 
48;  early  writing,  51,  52,  54;  enters 
Harvard,  54;  earliest  dated  letter, 
56;  illness,  58,  59;  log-book  of  the 
Red  Jacket,  60;  boats,  64;  hand 


writing,  65;  college  essays  quoted, 
66-120;  first  literary  tendencies, 
84,  85;  keeps  poultry,  88,  89;  love 
of  retirement,  not  unsocial,  90;  pre 
ferred  Milton  to  Shakespeare,  91, 
note;  education  in  languages,  105; 
taste  for  reading,  122;  early  po 
etry;  129;  financial  help  in  college, 
153,  154;  versed  in  Greek,  174; 
keeping  the  Town  School,  194; 
pencil-making,  190,  195,  211-13; 
school  in  Academy  Lane,  201-11; 
curiosity,  207;  early  travels,  219, 
220;  the  week  on  the  rivers, 
222-41;  first  published  poem,  223; 
gives  up  teaching,  239,240;  scrupu 
lous  about  favors,  241 ;  his  sly  hu 
mor,  255;  influence  of  ancestry  on 
his  style,  259;  knowledge  of  hu 
man  nature,  280-82;  not  a  mis 
anthrope,  283-84;  fidelity  in 
friendship,  284,  285;  misunder 
standing  with  Emerson,  295-97; 
industry  and  public  services,  314- 
17,  325-28;  as  a  surveyor,  317, 
333;  strict  about  money,  327;  the 
"Texas"  house,  327,  328;  obser 
vations  on  women,  361,  362;  trav 
els,  366-415,  failing  health,  389, 
390:  botanical  and  geological  ex 
cursions,  405-08;  as  a  working- 
man,  461-63;  abolitV--  livities, 
468,  469,  4«Q-fttj  last  days,  491- 
93,  ^iiierson  and  Thoreau  com 
pared,  495,  496;  his  "literary  re 
birth,"  497-501. 

Essays  (quoted):  "Following 
the  Fashion,"  66;  "Anxieties  and 
Delights  of  a  Discoverer,"  68; 
"Energy  in  Men,"  70;  "Shall  We 
Keep  Journals?"  73;  "Varying 
Pursuits  of  Men,"  76;  "Punish 
ments,"  79;  "The  Literary  Life," 
85 ; "  The  Simple  Style,"  90; "  Char 
acteristics  of  Milton's  Poesy,"  93; 


[  540  ] 


INDEX 


"I/ Allegro  and  II  Penseroso,"  98; 
'*  National  and  Individual  Gen 
ius,"  106;  "Imagination  as  an 
Element  in  Happiness,"  114;  "The 
Story-Telling  Faculty,"  117; 
"Books  and  their  Titles,"  123; 
"American  Literature,"  130; 
"The  Superior  and  the  Common 
Man,"  137;  "The  Sublimity  of 
Death,"  142;  "Conformity  in 
Things  Unessential,"  150;  "Pro 
vincial  Americans,"  155;  "Various 
Means  of  Public  Influence,"  159; 
"Mankind  Classified,"  164;  ".So 
cial  Forms  and  Restraints,"  166; 
"The"  Morality  of  Lying,"  171; 
"Fate  among  the  Ancients,"  175; 
"Compulsory  Education,"  178; 
"Barbarism  and  Civilization," 
180;  "Titus  Pomponius  Atticus," 
183;  "Gratitude,"  272;  "Civil 
Disobedience,"  478. 

Journals  (quoted),  14,  16,  21, 
23-25,  26,  83,  192-94,  224-27, 
231-33,  234,  273-77,  281,  282,  288, 
289,  296,  321-24,  331,  332,  343, 
437-40,  442-47. 

Letters  (quoted),  56,  57,  59,  60, 
62,  63. 

Poems  (quoted):  "The  White 
Rooster,"  88;  "The  Breeze's  Invi 
tation,"  230;  "Godfrey  of  Bou 
logne,"  250;  "Winter  and  Spring 
Scene,"  262;  "Our  Country  Neigh 
bors,"  265;  "Inspiration,"  267; 
"A  Prayer,"  271;  "Our  Country," 
278;  "Ye  princes,  keep  your 
realms,"  284;  "I  knew  a  gentle 
boy,"  350;  "To  the  Maiden  in 
the  East,"  353;  "The  Just  Made 
Perfect,"  363;  "The  Departure," 
500;  "I  ask  no  meaner  pelf," 
502. 

Thoreau,  Jane  (aunt  of  Henry),  388, 
444. 


Thoreau,  Jane  Burns  (grandmother 
of  Henry),  4,  28,  441,  442. 

Thoreau,  John  (brother  of  Henry), 
39, 190, 197.  210, 211, 213-18,  235, 
240. 

Thoreau,  John  (father  of  Henry),  5, 

31,  32,  34,  36,  443-47. 
Thoreau,     John     (grandfather     of 

Henry),  3,  4.  5,  26,  28,  29,  30,  441, 
443. 
Thoreau,  Maria  (aunt  of  Henry),  28, 

32,  388,  441,  474,  475. 
Thoreau,      Philippe      (great-grand 
father  of  Henry),  3. 

Thoreau,    Rebecca    Hurd    (second 

wife  of  John  Thoreau  of  Jersey), 

29-31. 
Thoreau,  Sophia,  310,  326,  338,  435, 

492,  505. 

Thoreaus  of  Jersey,  2,  3,  4. 
Todd,  Mabel  Loomis,  388,  note;  389. 
"Touchstone,"  by  Allingham,  477. 
Traubel,  Horace,  336. 
Truth,  observations  on,  183-85;  195. 

196. 

Unitarian  controversy  in  Concord, 
44,  45. 

Very,  Jones,  150,  174. 
Village  culture,  458-60. 
Vose,  Judge  Henry,  56. 

Walden,  324,  338."" 

"Wanderer,  The,"  Thoreau  de 
scribed  in,  170. 

War,  spiritual,  243,  244;  312,  313. 

Ward,  Mrs.  Colonel,  467,  468. 

Ward,  Miss  Prudence,  197,  198,  467, 
474,  475;  quotations  from  letters, 
200,  202,  229,  352,  470,  471. 

Ware,  Dr.  Henry,  158. 

Warren,  Henry,  a  pupil  at  Thoreau's 
school,  203,  205,  206,  208. 

Watson,  Marston,  154, 356,  371, 499. 


541 


INDEX 


Wealth,  love  of,  187,  188. 

Webster,  Daniel,  and  Louisa  Dun- 
bar,  46;  views  on  slavery,  475, 476. 

Webster,  Prof.  J.  W.,  58. 

Weld,  Theodore,  381. 

Western  literature  and  language, 
comments  on,  275-77. 

Whiting,  Colonel,  34. 


Whitman,  Mrs.  Sarah,  359,  360. 
Whitman,  Walt,  199,  308-11,  317, 

336,  337,  382,  383,  385. 
Williams,  Henry,  57. 
Woodbury,  John  P.,  318,  319. 

Zeal  and  enthusiasm  not  accurate 
calculators,  70,  71. 


ffitoertfbe 

CAMBRIDGE  .  MASSACHUSETTS 
U   .   S    .   A 


CIR. 


9  1,999 


(G 


U.C.  BERKELEY  LIBRARIES 


3 f tits 


f  7 

THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA  LIBRARY 


